Technical SEO Audit
Comprehensive technical SEO analysis of any webpage. Get actionable insights on performance, mobile-friendliness, and technical issues.
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Analyze any webpage for technical SEO issues
What We Analyze
- Meta tags optimization
- Heading structure (H1-H6)
- URL structure
- Image optimization
- Internal linking
- Mobile responsiveness
- Page speed insights
- Structured data
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What is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website's technical infrastructure to identify issues that may prevent search engines from properly crawling, indexing, and ranking your pages.
🔍 Crawlability
Ensure search bots can access and navigate your site structure
📱 Mobile-First
Check mobile responsiveness and usability
⚡ Page Speed
Analyze load times and Core Web Vitals
🏗️ Site Structure
Review URL structure, internal linking, and architecture
Key Technical SEO Factors
1. Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
Google uses page experience signals as ranking factors. Focus on:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - Should be under 2.5s
- First Input Delay (FID) - Should be under 100ms
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - Should be under 0.1
2. Mobile Optimization
With mobile-first indexing, Google primarily uses the mobile version of your content for indexing and ranking. Ensure responsive design and fast mobile load times.
3. HTTPS & Security
HTTPS is a confirmed ranking signal. Ensure your site has a valid SSL certificate and all resources load securely.
4. Structured Data
Implement schema markup to help search engines understand your content better and enable rich results in search.
Common Technical SEO Issues
Slow Page Speed
Large images, unoptimized code, and lack of caching can drastically slow down your site.
Broken Links (404 Errors)
Internal and external broken links damage user experience and waste crawl budget.
Duplicate Content
Multiple URLs with similar content confuse search engines. Use canonical tags properly.
Missing Alt Text
Images without alt attributes hurt accessibility and miss keyword opportunities.
Poor Mobile Experience
Non-responsive design, tiny text, and clickable elements too close together.
How to Fix Technical SEO Issues
Optimize Images
Compress images, use next-gen formats (WebP), implement lazy loading, and always include descriptive alt text.
Fix Crawl Errors
Use Google Search Console to identify 404s, redirects chains, and crawl budget issues. Fix or redirect broken URLs.
Implement Structured Data
Add JSON-LD schema markup for articles, products, reviews, FAQs, and breadcrumbs to enable rich results.
Improve Page Speed
Minify CSS/JS, enable compression, leverage browser caching, use a CDN, and optimize server response times.
Create XML Sitemap
Generate and submit an XML sitemap to help search engines discover all your important pages efficiently.
Technical SEO Checklist by Priority
Focus your efforts on what matters most for search engines
🔴 Critical Priority (Fix Immediately)
- •HTTPS/SSL Certificate: Ensure entire site uses HTTPS with valid SSL certificate
- •Indexability Issues: Check robots.txt doesn't block important pages, remove noindex from key pages
- •Major Crawl Errors: Fix widespread 404s, server errors (500s), and redirect chains
- •Mobile Usability: Ensure site is mobile-responsive and passes Google's Mobile-Friendly Test
- •Core Web Vitals: Address critical performance issues affecting LCP, FID, and CLS
🟠 High Priority (Address This Month)
- •XML Sitemap: Create, validate, and submit comprehensive sitemap to Search Console
- •Canonical Tags: Implement canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues
- •Title Tag & Meta Descriptions: Optimize missing or duplicate meta tags on key pages
- •Internal Linking Structure: Fix orphan pages and improve link distribution
- •Image Optimization: Add alt text to all images, compress large files
🟡 Medium Priority (Address This Quarter)
- •Structured Data: Implement schema markup for rich results
- •Page Speed Optimization: Improve load times through caching, minification, CDN
- •URL Structure: Clean up messy URLs, implement logical hierarchy
- •Hreflang Tags: For multi-language sites, implement proper hreflang tags
- •Breadcrumb Navigation: Add breadcrumbs to improve UX and internal linking
🟢 Low Priority (Nice to Have)
- •Pagination Tags: Add rel="prev" and rel="next" for paginated content
- •Log File Analysis: Analyze server logs to understand crawler behavior
- •Favicons & App Icons: Implement proper favicons for all devices
- •Social Meta Tags: Add Open Graph and Twitter Card tags
Core Web Vitals: Explained
Understanding Google's page experience ranking signals
📊 Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Measures loading performance - specifically when the largest content element becomes visible. Good LCP is under 2.5 seconds.
- • Optimize and compress images (use WebP format)
- • Remove render-blocking JavaScript and CSS
- • Upgrade to faster hosting with better server response times
- • Implement lazy loading for below-the-fold content
- • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
⚡ First Input Delay (FID) / Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Measures interactivity - the time from when a user first interacts with your page to when the browser responds. Good FID is under 100ms. (Note: Google is transitioning to INP in 2024)
- • Minimize JavaScript execution time
- • Break up long tasks into smaller, asynchronous tasks
- • Remove unused JavaScript (code splitting)
- • Use web workers to run JS off the main thread
- • Optimize event handlers and reduce callback execution time
🎯 Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Measures visual stability - how much content shifts unexpectedly during loading. Good CLS is under 0.1.
- • Always include width and height attributes on images and videos
- • Reserve space for ads and embeds using CSS aspect ratios
- • Avoid inserting content above existing content (except in response to user interaction)
- • Use font-display: swap carefully to prevent text shifts
- • Preload custom fonts to prevent FOIT/FOUT
📈 Measuring Core Web Vitals
- • Google Search Console
- • Chrome User Experience Report
- • PageSpeed Insights (field data section)
- • PageSpeed Insights (lab data section)
- • Lighthouse (Chrome DevTools)
- • WebPageTest.org
Advanced Technical SEO Strategies
Professional techniques for enterprise-level optimization
1. JavaScript SEO & Client-Side Rendering
Modern sites built with React, Vue, or Angular need special attention to ensure Googlebot can render and index content properly.
- • Use Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or Static Site Generation (SSG) when possible
- • Implement dynamic rendering for search bots if full SSR isn't feasible
- • Test rendering with Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and URL Inspection Tool
- • Ensure critical content is in initial HTML, not loaded via AJAX
- • Use Progressive Enhancement for essential functionality
2. Crawl Budget Optimization
For large sites (10,000+ pages), managing how search engines spend their crawl budget is critical.
- • Block low-value pages in robots.txt (search result pages, admin areas, duplicates)
- • Fix redirect chains and eliminate unnecessary redirects
- • Return proper status codes (404 for deleted content, not soft 404s)
- • Improve site speed to allow more pages crawled per session
- • Consolidate duplicate content with canonical tags
- • Monitor crawl stats in Search Console weekly
3. International SEO with Hreflang
For multi-language or multi-regional sites, proper hreflang implementation prevents duplicate content issues and serves the right version to users.
<!-- US English version -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us"
href="https://example.com/en-us/page" />
<!-- UK English version -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb"
href="https://example.com/en-gb/page" />
<!-- Spanish version -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es"
href="https://example.com/es/page" />
<!-- Default fallback -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default"
href="https://example.com/page" />4. Advanced Schema Markup Strategies
Go beyond basic schema to enable rich results and knowledge graph inclusion.
- • Organization & Logo schema for brand knowledge panels
- • SiteNavigationElement for enhanced sitelinks
- • Speakable schema for voice search optimization
- • HowTo and FAQ schema for featured snippets
- • Video schema with clips markup for key moments
- • Product schema with reviews and aggregateRating
5. Log File Analysis for SEO
Analyze server logs to understand exactly how search engines are crawling your site and find hidden issues.
- • Pages being crawled that shouldn't be (wasted crawl budget)
- • Important pages not being crawled frequently enough
- • Crawler errors and status codes (404s, 500s, timeouts)
- • Unusual bot behavior or bot attacks
- • Crawl rate fluctuations correlating with site changes
6. API-First & Headless CMS SEO
Headless CMS architectures require special SEO considerations since content is delivered via API.
- • Implement SSR/SSG to ensure content is in initial HTML
- • Generate meta tags server-side (title, description, OG tags)
- • Create XML sitemaps dynamically from content API
- • Implement proper URL routing and canonical URLs
- • Ensure structured data is rendered server-side
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I run a technical SEO audit?
Run a comprehensive audit quarterly (every 3 months), with lighter monthly checks on critical metrics. Additionally, always audit before and after major site changes like redesigns, migrations, or CMS updates. Use Google Search Console weekly to catch urgent issues like crawl errors or security problems.
What's the difference between technical SEO and on-page SEO?
Technical SEO focuses on website infrastructure: crawlability, indexability, site speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data, and architecture. On-page SEO focuses on content optimization: keywords, title tags, headings, content quality, and internal linking. Both are essential - technical SEO ensures search engines can access your content, while on-page SEO ensures it's optimized for relevant queries.
Do Core Web Vitals directly affect rankings?
Yes, but it's a relatively minor ranking factor. Google confirmed Core Web Vitals are part of the "page experience" update. However, content relevance remains far more important. Good Core Web Vitals won't save irrelevant content, but poor metrics can hurt rankings when competing pages have similar content quality. The bigger impact is on user experience - better metrics typically lead to lower bounce rates and higher engagement, which indirectly improves SEO.
Should I use a CDN for SEO?
Absolutely. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) serves your content from servers geographically closer to users, dramatically improving load times worldwide. This directly improves Core Web Vitals (especially LCP) and reduces bounce rates. CDNs also improve reliability and can handle traffic spikes. For global sites, a CDN is essential for competitive SEO. Popular options include Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront, and Fastly.
How do I fix duplicate content issues?
Use canonical tags to point to the preferred version: <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/preferred-url">. For pagination, use rel="prev" and rel="next" tags, or implement "view all" pages. Consolidate similar content into comprehensive pages rather than multiple thin pages. Use 301 redirects for truly duplicate URLs. Check Search Console's "Duplicate content" report to identify issues.
What's the ideal page speed for SEO?
Target under 3 seconds for full page load, with LCP under 2.5 seconds. However, speed is relative - the real goal is being faster than competitors ranking for your target keywords. Use real-user monitoring (RUM) data from Search Console's Core Web Vitals report, not just lab tests. Mobile speed matters more than desktop since Google uses mobile-first indexing.
Is AMP still necessary for SEO?
No. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is no longer required for Google's Top Stories carousel or any ranking advantage. As of June 2021, any page meeting Core Web Vitals thresholds can appear in Top Stories. Focus on making your regular pages fast using modern performance best practices rather than maintaining separate AMP versions. However, if your AMP implementation already works well, there's no urgent need to remove it.
How do I know if Google is indexing my JavaScript content?
Use Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool - it shows you exactly what Googlebot sees after rendering JavaScript. Click "View Crawled Page" and compare the rendered HTML to your source. Test critical pages monthly. If important content is missing from the rendered version, implement Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or Static Site Generation (SSG). Also check that critical content appears in the initial HTML, not just after JavaScript execution.
What's the difference between crawling and indexing?
Crawling is when Googlebot discovers and downloads your pages. Indexing is when Google analyzes content and adds it to its search index. A page can be crawled but not indexed if it's low quality, blocked by noindex, or has technical issues. Check Search Console's "Coverage" report to see which pages are crawled vs. indexed. Focus on ensuring important pages are both crawlable AND indexable.
Should I use a subdomain or subdirectory for my blog?
Use a subdirectory (example.com/blog/) rather than a subdomain (blog.example.com). Subdirectories consolidate all SEO authority to your main domain, while subdomains are treated as separate sites and don't directly pass authority. The only exceptions: when the blog is on a completely different platform that can't integrate with your main site, or when you're intentionally separating brand properties. For 99% of businesses, subdirectories are the better SEO choice.