What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit checks whether Google can find, crawl, understand and index your website. Content and links count for little if Google can’t reach your pages or load them properly.
Technical problems are easy to miss, because a site can look fine to visitors while Google struggles with it. These are the areas we check first on a small business website.
Pages Google Can’t Index
- A noindex tag left on from when the site was being built.
- Pages blocked by the robots.txt file.
- Important pages missing from the XML sitemap, or old pages still listed in it.
- Pages Google has crawled but chosen not to index, which often points to thin or duplicate content.
Search Console’s Pages report shows which pages are indexed and why others aren’t. It’s the first place we look.
We saw how quickly this can go wrong with a solar company, where a site update put a noindex tag live across the whole domain. When that happens, or when robots.txt blocks key folders, Google drops pages from its index quickly and traffic can flatline almost overnight. Checking for it should be the first job after any site update or redesign.
Duplicate and Missing Titles
Title tags and meta descriptions are often duplicated across pages, left blank or set to the page name only. Each page needs its own title that describes what it offers. Duplicate titles also make it harder for Google to tell pages apart.
Broken Links and Redirect Chains
Over time, pages get deleted or renamed and links break. A crawler such as Screaming Frog finds internal links pointing to missing pages, and redirects that bounce through several steps before reaching the right page. Update those links so they point straight at the final address.
Slow Pages
Speed problems usually come from a handful of causes:
- Images uploaded far larger than they’re displayed.
- Fonts that load late and make the text jump around.
- Too many plugins or scripts loading on every page.
- Lazy-loading applied to the main image at the top of the page, which delays the part visitors see first.
We found some of these on our own site. After we restyled it, our PageSpeed score dropped. The fixes were resizing images to the size they’re displayed at, changing how our fonts load and adjusting our lazy-loading settings.
A website can look perfect to visitors and still be hard work for Google.
Mobile Problems
Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing. Text that’s too small, buttons too close together or content hidden on mobile can all hold a site back. Check your key pages on a phone, not just in a narrowed desktop browser.
Orphan Pages and Weak Internal Links
An orphan page has no internal links pointing to it, so neither visitors nor Google can find it easily. Important pages should be linked from your menu or from related pages, with link text that describes where the link goes.
Structured Data Errors
Schema markup helps search engines understand your business and your content. Problems include markup with errors, markup that doesn’t match what’s on the page and two plugins adding the same schema twice. Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator show what’s on each page.
We found this on our own SEO Sussex page this month. After we rewrote three of its FAQs, the page’s schema still listed the old questions until we updated it to match.
Technical SEO Audit Checklist: What to Check Yourself
- Check the Pages report in Search Console for pages that aren’t indexed.
- Run a free crawl of up to 500 URLs with Screaming Frog.
- Test your main pages in PageSpeed Insights.
- Check your key pages on a phone.
Technical audits are a core part of our SEO audits for Sussex businesses.
Structured data is a technical area that small businesses often skip. In the next post, we show you how to add schema markup with Google Tag Manager and AI.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does a Technical SEO Audit Cost?
It depends on the size of the website and how much needs checking. A small business site takes far less time to audit than a large online shop. We give a clear quote after a free 30-minute call.
How Long Does a Technical SEO Audit Take?
For a small business website, the checks can usually be done in a few days. Larger sites, or sites with complex problems, take longer. Fixing what the audit finds is a separate job.
How Often Should You Have a Technical SEO Audit?
Once a year suits most small business websites, plus a check after any redesign, migration or major site update. Those are the times when problems such as a stray noindex tag are most likely to appear.
Do You Offer SEO Audits in Sussex?
Yes. We’re based in East Grinstead and carry out SEO audits for businesses across West Sussex and East Sussex, as well as across the UK.