How to Conduct a Full Technical SEO Audit (With Tools & Checklist)

🔍 1. Start With a Crawl

Crawling is like turning the lights on in a dark room—you see everything clearly. Use tools like Screaming Frog or SEMrush Site Audit to understand how bots view your site. It shows broken pages, duplicate content, and indexation issues. Pay attention to:

• Crawl depth (are important pages buried?)
• Canonical tags (are they properly set?)
• Meta tags (title length, missing descriptions)

⚙️ 2. Check Indexation Status

If your site has 500 pages but only 300 are indexed, that’s a red flag. Use the URL Inspection Tool to check why certain pages aren't indexed. You might have:

• Noindex tags in place
• Duplicate content filtered out
• URLs blocked by robots.txt or disallowed meta directives

Pro tip: Submit missing but important URLs manually via Google Search Console.

📈 3. Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

Speed impacts user experience and rankings. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to get suggestions for improvements:

• Defer unused CSS
• Use next-gen formats (like WebP)
• Eliminate render-blocking resources

Bonus: Use Cloudflare or a CDN to globally deliver content faster.

📱 4. Mobile-Friendliness

Check your site on real devices—not just simulators. Some issues you might find:

• Tap targets too close
• Content wider than screen
• Horizontal scroll bars

Fixes: Use flexible grid-based layouts and scalable images.

🔐 5. HTTPS & Site Security

Run your site through WhyNoPadlock to check mixed content issues. Remember, modern browsers now label non-HTTPS sites as "Not Secure"—which can scare users away.

📚 6. Structured Data / Schema Markup

Structured data can supercharge your SEO without building a single backlink. Add schema to product, service, blog, and review pages. Always validate your code using Google’s tools and ensure:

• No fake or misleading data
• Only schema relevant to the page content

🧭 7. Internal Linking & Site Architecture

A proper internal linking strategy helps with:

• Distributing link equity
• Boosting time on site
• Creating topical clusters

Use tools like Ahrefs Site Audit to identify orphan pages and ensure important pages are 2-3 clicks away from the homepage.