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How to Perform a Complete Technical SEO Audit

Prioritize regular auditing and continual refinement.
Sahand Aso Ali
How to Perform a Complete Technical SEO Audit
How to Perform a Complete Technical SEO Audit

Achieving optimal website performance in today’s digital landscape necessitates a meticulous and structured technical SEO audit. This process uncovers foundational issues that impede organic visibility and ensures search engines can crawl, index, and understand your site effectively. Below, we provide a step-by-step technical SEO audit guide to elevate your site's performance and search engine ranking.

1. Crawl Your Website Like a Search Engine

Before we diagnose any issues, we must replicate how search engine bots navigate the website.

Use Crawling Tools

  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider – Ideal for full-scale desktop audits

  • Sitebulb – Combines data visualization with crawl data

  • Ahrefs Site Audit – Powerful cloud-based tool

  • Semrush Site Audit – Offers competitive insights

Key Crawl Metrics to Review

  • Crawl Depth: Pages more than 3 clicks deep may be neglected

  • Duplicate URLs: Ensure canonicalization is implemented

  • Orphan Pages: No internal links, hence no access by bots

  • Broken Links (404s): Dilutes link equity and disrupts UX

  • Redirect Chains & Loops: Waste crawl budget and slow indexing

2. Analyze the Website's Indexability

If a page isn’t indexable, it cannot rank—no matter how optimized it is.

Check Robots.txt File

Ensure critical paths (like /wp-content/, /admin/) are disallowed, while content pages are allowed:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Review Meta Robots Tags

Pages may include:

  • noindex, follow – Will not appear in search results but will pass link juice

  • index, nofollow – Will be indexed, but links won’t be followed

Prioritize checking:

  • Paginated archives

  • Thank you pages

  • Login pages

Inspect X-Robots-Tag HTTP Headers

Use tools like Web Sniffer or cURL to see HTTP headers:

curl -I https://example.com/page

Look for:

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Google Search Console Coverage Report

Use GSC to discover:

  • Excluded URLs

  • Crawled but currently not indexed

  • Duplicate content with no canonical

3. Ensure Proper Canonicalization

Duplicate content causes major SEO problems. Canonical tags consolidate link equity.

Best Practices

  • Canonical URLs must be absolute (e.g., https://example.com/page/)

  • Avoid self-referencing errors

  • Ensure HTTPS and non-WWW versions all point to the preferred canonical

Use this tag in <head>:


<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/preferred-page/">

4. Optimize Site Architecture

Your site’s architecture influences crawling efficiency and user experience.

Flat Structure

Every page should ideally be within 3 clicks of the homepage. Example structure:

Homepage → Category → Subcategory → Product Page

Internal Linking

  • Contextual linking to relevant internal content

  • Use descriptive anchor text

  • Avoid excessive nofollow usage internally

URL Structure

  • URLs should be short, keyword-rich, and readable

  • Avoid dynamic parameters like ?id=123

  • Use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_)

5. Assess and Fix Crawl Errors

Broken Internal Links

Use crawling tools to find and fix 4xx and 5xx errors. Every internal link should resolve to a 200 OK status.

Redirect Chains

Limit redirects to a single hop. Chain examples:

A → B → C → D (Bad)
A → D (Ideal)

Soft 404s

Pages that load but lack content should return a 404 or 410 status, not a 200 OK.

6. Mobile-Friendliness and Responsive Design

Mobile-first indexing means Google uses the mobile version for ranking.

Mobile Usability Report

Use Google Search Console > Mobile Usability:

  • Tap targets too close?

  • Text too small?

  • Content wider than screen?

Responsive Design Checklist

  • Avoid fixed-width layouts

  • Use viewport meta tag

  • Media queries for fluid breakpoints

7. Improve Website Speed

Page speed is a core web vital and ranking factor.

Tools for Speed Analysis

  • Google PageSpeed Insights

  • GTmetrix

  • WebPageTest

  • Lighthouse Audit (Chrome DevTools)

Technical Recommendations

  • Enable GZIP compression

  • Minify CSS, JS, and HTML

  • Use lazy-loading for images

  • Implement HTTP/2

  • Reduce server response time (<200ms ideal)

  • Defer offscreen images

8. Ensure HTTPS is Properly Implemented

HTTPS is not optional. Ensure:

  • SSL certificate is valid and up to date

  • No mixed content warnings (HTTPS pages loading HTTP assets)

  • Redirects from HTTP to HTTPS are 301s

Use:

curl -I http://example.com

Check for:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://example.com/

9. Optimize Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data helps search engines understand context and enhances SERP appearance.

Types to Implement

  • Breadcrumb Schema

  • Product Schema

  • Article Schema

  • FAQ Schema

  • Local Business Schema

Validation Tools

  • Schema.org Validator

  • Rich Results Test

  • Google Search Console Enhancements Report

Use JSON-LD syntax:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "How to Perform a Complete Technical SEO Audit",
  "author": "Your Company",
  "datePublished": "2025-05-27"
}
</script>

10. Audit XML Sitemap

The sitemap must be:

  • Up to date

  • Includes only indexable URLs

  • Fewer than 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed

  • Submitted via Google Search Console

Structure:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page1/</loc>
  <lastmod>2025-05-27</lastmod>
  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>

11. Analyze Log Files

Understand how Googlebot interacts with your site by parsing server log files.

Key Insights

  • Crawl frequency of URLs

  • Pages with high crawl rate but low traffic

  • Crawled non-indexable pages (wasted budget)

Use tools like:

  • Screaming Frog Log File Analyser

  • Botify

  • Splunk

12. Manage Crawl Budget Efficiently

Avoid overloading your crawl budget.

Steps to Improve

  • Block faceted navigation with robots.txt or noindex

  • Consolidate duplicate content

  • Use canonical tags on dynamic URLs

  • Avoid infinite scrolls without paginated HTML

13. Check for JavaScript SEO Issues

Modern websites use JavaScript heavily. But search engines may fail to render or crawl them.

Recommendations

  • Use server-side rendering (SSR) when possible

  • Employ dynamic rendering (e.g., Puppeteer or Rendertron)

  • Check content visibility using the Google URL Inspection Tool

  • Use Pre-render.io for SPA frameworks

14. Perform Core Web Vitals Assessment

Core Web Vitals (CWV) are crucial ranking factors. Focus on:

Metrics

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): <2.5s

  • First Input Delay (FID): <100ms

  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): <0.1

Fixes

  • Preload key assets

  • Avoid layout shifts by reserving image dimensions

  • Reduce third-party scripts

  • Optimize font loading (font-display: swap)

15. Review and Optimize Pagination

Ensure paginated content is SEO-friendly.

Best Practices

  • Use rel="next" and rel="prev" if supported

  • Link to view all version if available

  • Ensure canonical tags point to self

16. Audit International SEO (If Applicable)

For multilingual or multiregional sites:

Hreflang Implementation

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://example.com/us/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="https://example.com/uk/" />

Avoid Common Mistakes

  • Mismatched hreflang URLs

  • Missing return links

  • Incorrect language codes

Use Screaming Frog to audit hreflang implementation.

17. Monitor and Mitigate Crawl Anomalies

Watch for:

  • Unusual spikes in 404s

  • Decline in crawled pages

  • Googlebot accessing blocked content

Set up GSC alerts and regularly monitor server logs.

18. Regular Maintenance and Re-Audits

Technical SEO isn’t a one-time task. Implement:

  • Monthly crawl reports

  • Quarterly log file analysis

  • Annual full SEO audit

Document all changes and track rankings over time.

Conclusion

A comprehensive technical SEO audit uncovers foundational roadblocks that hinder your website’s visibility and performance. By systematically addressing each component—from crawlability and indexation to speed, schema, and mobile usability—we ensure that your site is not only search engine-friendly but also future-proof.

Prioritize regular auditing and continual refinement. With this guide, your website is primed to outrank competitors, enhance user experience, and achieve sustained organic growth.

About the author

Sahand Aso Ali
I am Sahand Aso Ali, a writer and technology specialist, sharing my experience and knowledge about programmers and content creators. I have been working in this field since 2019, and I strive to provide reliable and useful content to readers.

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