Struggling to boost your website’s search engine rankings in 2025? A technical SEO audit can be your secret weapon. This technical SEO checklist 2025 empowers you to optimize your website for better crawlability, speed as well as user experience.
This comprehensive guide breaks it down into actionable steps, covering modern essentials such as Core Web Vitals, mobile-first indexing, along structured data.
We’ll also walk you through using powerful tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and PageSpeed Insights, with visuals in order to simplify the process.
You’ll drive more traffic and enhance your satisfaction just by addressing issues like duplicate content or crawl errors. Perfect for beginners as well as experienced marketers alike, this guide makes the technical SEO approachable while being effective. Let’s elevate your website’s performance and dominate search results.
Technical SEO makes sure your website is well-built and easy for search engines like Google to understand. It involves fixing any technical problems on your site, like broken links or slow loading times, so that search engines can find your site easily and show it to people who are looking for what you offer.
Basically, it helps your website get more visibility and visitors from search engines, which is important for the success of your online business or presence as well as provide a better ranking.
It helps you get crawled and indexed by the search engines so that your site is ranked and gains more traffic. Further, it enhances user experience by increasing the loading speed and simplifying the navigation.
There are many more additional benefits of tech SEO like optimization, improved visibility, etc. Together with content optimization on-page SEO and linking optimization, it makes the page easily locatable by search engines thereby increasing your site rank.
SEO Audit and technical SEO audit help find errors and corrections so that there is no hindrance in the ranking of the site. While an SEO audit focuses on the evaluation of the factors that oversee how well the optimization of the site is for search engines, a technical SEO audit focuses on the technical aspects of the site that are connected to the SEO of the site. It finds the errors and corrects them making the site user-friendly, and approachable.
As an SEO expert, I often notice that people sometimes overlook Technical SEO and solely concentrate on basic SEO. Later, they express frustration when their site doesn’t rank well. It’s crucial to emphasize that Technical SEO plays a significant role in Google rankings.
Some of the key elements of technical SEO are Indexability, performance, and crawlability. These are some of the things that are taken into consideration when working through technical SEO. All the elements work together to optimize the site and make it user-friendly, enhance page speed and get rid of duplicate content, 401 errors and others to make it fully optimized.
The technical SEO audit factors include site errors, sitemaps, social media integration, page speed, ASL certificate, bloated CSS and JavaScript files, URL errors, robots.txt, mobile optimization and many more.
How to Conduct a Technical SEO Audit? (With Examples)
Conducting a technical SEO audit is not a normal audit but should be considered a necessary task that should be undertaken at regular intervals.
Here, we have laid down the important points and steps of how you can conduct a technical SEO audit.
Step 1: Choosing the Right Technical SEO Tools
It is important to choose a tool for your website’s technical audit. There are various which help you undertake the technical aspects of the site to find out the errors and correct them to keep your site optimized.
It’s an efficient SEO tool that helps you track traffic, identify errors, and optimize your site for better crawling, indexing, and overall performance.
You can choose between Google Search Console or Screaming Frog for efficient SEO management. Both tools help track traffic, identify errors, and optimize your site for better crawling, indexing, and performance.
However, with Google Search Console, you need to verify your property by attaching your website for access, whereas Screaming Frog allows analysis without this step.
Essential Technical SEO Audit Tools
1. Google Search Console (GSC)
- Google Search Console is free and essential for monitoring Google’s view of your site.
- It tracks indexing issues, search queries, mobile usability, along with CTR
- You can use the URL inspection Tool in order to debug each page.
2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- Screaming Frog crawls your website just like a search engine.
- It helps you find broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.
- It’s free to use up to 500 URLs, otherwise, you can have a paid full site audit.
3. Bonus Tools
- Page Speed Insights: This tool tests loading speed along with Core Web Vitals.
- Ahrefs/SEMrush: These tools can be used to perform advanced SEO audit and competitor analysis.
Quick Audit Process:
- Check errors in GSC
- Crawl with Screaming Frog
- Test speed with PageSpeed Insights
- Verify with Ahrefs/SEMrush
Step 2: Check Website Indexing and Crawling
Think of crawl budget like Google’s daily visits for your site. The Googlebot has a limited time in order to spend on each website, so we all need to make sure it focuses on your most important pages.
Easy Ways to Optimize:
Try to remove all the time-wasters:
- Delete or fix pages that give Googlebot trouble
- Duplicate content (like product color variations)
- Empty or “coming soon” pages
- Broken pages (404 errors)
Guide Google to Good Content:
- Put your most valuable pages in your sitemap
- Use internal links to point to important pages
- Fix redirect chains (when pages keep forwarding to other pages)
Check Your Traffic Light:
In Google Search Console, look at:
- Crawl stats (is Google visiting too much/too little?)
- Blocked resources (are we accidentally hiding good pages?)
Simple Example:
If your website were a library, crawl budget optimization would be like:
- Removing duplicate copies of the same book
- Making sure the popular books are easy to find
- Fixing any books with missing pages
Remember: You don’t need to worry about crawl budget if you have a small site (under 500 pages). Focus on this when you have thousands of pages or frequent new content.
Step 3: Assessing website security and HTTPS implementation
Website security is necessary to keep your webpage free from malfunctions or viruses, protect customers’ privacy, and prevent errors. HTTPS must be implemented for site security. It ensures an encrypted connection between the server and its clients. The hosting web may provide the implementation or ask for an SSL or TLS certificate.
Why It Matters:
- Essential for user trust + Google rankings
- Prevents data breaches & warnings
Quick Checklist:
- Valid SSL certificate installed
- Full HTTPS site (no mixed content)
- HTTP→HTTPS 301 redirects working
- HSTS header implemented
Key Tools:
- SSL Labs (certificate test)
- Why No Padlock? (mixed content)
- SecurityHeaders.io (HSTS check)
Fast Fixes:
- Get free SSL via Let’s Encrypt
- Force HTTPS via .htaccess
- Submit the updated sitemap to GSC
Pro Tip: Monitor GSC for indexing issues after switching to HTTPS
Step 4: Analyzing XML sitemaps and robots.txt file
The XML sitemaps are a kind of route map for the search engines in the form of a file where they can crawl for different pages for indexing. It provides all the URLs for the pages for easy search. The robots.txt file helps in locating in the crawling process the URLs which can be accessed. It is essential to analyze this as it helps in increasing the rank.
Action Steps:
- Submit XML sitemap to Google Search Console
- Review errors in GSC’s Sitemaps report
- Validate robots.txt through Google’s test tool
- Blog unnecessary pages like admin, duplicates in robots.txt
- Make sure the sitemap has only indexable pages
Why? Because these files tell search engines to prioritize your content.
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Step 5: Checking for duplicate content and canonicalization issues
Another technical issue that causes a reduction in ranking and indexing is duplicate content and canonicalization of the content and URL. It means that there are various variations of the same page.
How to Check & Fix:
Find duplicates using:
- Screaming Frog (check identical meta/page titles)
- Google Search Console (HTML improvements)
- Set canonical tags on all duplicate versions
Consolidate content by:
- 301 redirecting weak pages
- Merging similar content
- Standardize URLs (choose www/non-www & HTTP/HTTPS version)
Why? Duplicates split ranking power and confuse search engines.
Step 6: Examining website URL structure and hierarchy
Every website URL must follow a certain structure in the hierarchy to be located easily. The hierarchy of the URL follows section, subsection, topic, and page which easily gives the location of the website and the page. The URL must be structured in a way that is complete and short. Make it relevant and have a WWW and HTTPS implementation.
Action Steps:
Follow logical structure:
- example.com/category/subcategory/page-title
Keep URLs:
- Short & descriptive
- Lowercase & hyphen-separated
- With HTTPS/WWW consistency
Fix issues:
- Remove unnecessary parameters
- Eliminate dynamic strings (?id=123)
- Redirect old URLs to the new structure
Why? Clean URLs improve crawlability + user experience.
Step 7: Evaluating the website's structured data and schema markup
The search engine that works on code understands the content of your pages on the website through structured data and schema markup. The schema is the language of search engines by which they understand the content of the page and index them. Having structured data via schema markup helps the engines to store the content and index it.
Action Steps:
- Identify important pages that need rich snippets like product pages, recipes, and events.
Add relevant schema using:
- JSON-LD (recommended format)
- Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper
Validate markup with:
- Rich Results Test (Google)
- Schema.org validator
- Monitor in GSC’s Enhancements report
Why? When you include schema, it helps search engines better understand and show your content in rich results.
Step 8: Identifying and fixing issues related to site architecture and navigation
The site architecture and navigation are usually the way by which users go through the website to a particular page. The architecture and navigation decide on the use of friendliness of the website. Moreover, the search engines also crawl through this navigation. Keeping it easy and short helps in locating the pages both for users and crawlers.
Action Steps:
Create a logical hierarchy:
- Max 3-click depth to important pages
- Clear parent/child relationships
Simplify navigation:
- Consistent menus
- Breadcrumb trails
- Internal linking strategy
Fix issues:
- Broken navigation links
- Orphan pages (no internal links)
- Complex mega-menus
Why? Good architecture improves crawlability along with user experience.
Pro Tip: Use Screaming Frog to:
- Visualize site structure
- Find orphaned pages
- Check internal link distribution
Step 10: Analyzing internal and external linking strategies
Another aspect that must be focused on in a technical SEO audit is analyzing internal and external linking. Internal linking directs to a different target page on your website, whereas external linking directs to a different website. It is necessary to have these links to have website authenticity, increase visibility, user engagement, etc.
Action Steps:
Internal Links:
- Fix broken links (4xx errors)
- Add contextual links to key pages
- Balance link equity with proper anchor text
External Links:
- Verify that outbound links work
- NoFollow spammy/resources
- Link to authoritative sources
Tools to Use:
- Screaming Frog (broken links)
- Ahrefs/SEMrush (link analysis)
Step 11: Cannibalization (Identifying and Resolving)
Cannibalization is the issue when different pages pop up for the same keyword. The issue reduces your traffic. You can resolve this issue by merging the content, deleting some posts or optimizing the content.
How to Find & Resolve:
Identify conflicts using:
- GSC (same keyword ranking multiple pages)
- SEMrush/Ahrefs (keyword overlap reports)
Solution options:
- Merge duplicate content
- 301 redirect weaker pages
- Optimize pages for multiple relevant keywords
Prevent future issues:
- Document keyword targets
- Use canonical tags properly
If Google can’t index your pages, then your content won’t rank. Use the console in order to fix the crawl error and ensure visibility.
Faster sites rank higher and keep users. You must optimize Core Web Vitals in order to boost SEO and engagement.
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Advanced Technical SEO Audit Techniques
Want to excel in technical SEO audits?
The basics of technical SEO audit are above addressed, but there are some advanced technical SEO audit techniques as follows:
Analyzing a website's JavaScript and CSS usage
- JavaScript is used to control the elements of the webpage and their behaviour. While CSS is used for formatting, editing, and presentation.
- The CSS coding helps to make the webpage stylish, and impressive and the JavaScript makes it interactive and functional.
- Analyzing both helps in making the webpage user-friendly, updated and attractive at the same time.
Assessing page rendering and DOM manipulation
To have an interactive and impressive webpage, that is user-friendly, you can go for DOM manipulation and page rendering.
- Page rendering is when the Java, CSS, and HTML code turn into an interactive page when the user clicks on the link.
- DOM manipulation is the process by which you modify, style and change the content of a webpage in Javascript, HTML and CSS by API.
Reviewing server and hosting configuration
It means that you code the webpage in a way that the host machine on your every network is configured to work as per the needs of the users on their end. Each host has their own name, network interface and internet address.
Further, monitor the server’s security, performance operations and other aspects. It improves the user interface and increases the site reach.
Conducting a comprehensive backlink analysis
Backlink analysis is the analysis of the quality and the volume of links that are associated with your website from other websites. It helps understand how the links impact your ranking.
- To conduct the analysis you must go to the Google search console, and select the website. Look for the links option and choose external links. There you will find top linking sites which show you the sites linking back to your webpage.
Assessing the website's international targeting and Hreflang implementation
The hreflang implementation means that you are adding an attribute to HTML linking to have specific geographical targeting and language of the webpage.
- This tag helps the search engines to recognise the variation of the same page based on language. It helps to reach different target audiences and wide reach.
- It also helps in having an international target audience and reaching them. You can add the tag by going to the HTML code and adding the hreflang attribute.
For Example
Assessing international targeting involves implementing hreflang tags in the section of each webpage, indicating language and regional variations. For instance, a webpage available in English for users in the US and Spanish for users in Spain would have hreflang tags like:
Each variation should point to its respective language and regional versions, ensuring search engines understand and display the appropriate content based on user location and language preferences.
Challenges People Face During Technical SEO Audit and how to solve those issues.
While going for a technical SEO audit there are several challenges one may go through. Here are some of them and the solutions.
Identifying and Fixing Crawl Errors
- You can identify the call errors using the tool site crawler, screaming frog, or search console. Look at the issue and resolve it.
- Identifying and resolving crawl errors is essential for maintaining a healthy and well-performing website. Utilizing tools such as Site Crawler, Screaming Frog, or Google Search Console can help pinpoint these issues effectively. Once identified, it’s crucial to analyze the root cause of the errors, which may include URL structure problems, duplicate content, or broken links.
- For instance, if encountering URL structure issues, aim to simplify and optimize URLs for better user experience and search engine visibility. Additionally, addressing duplicate content through canonical tags or redirects and fixing broken links promptly are vital steps in resolving crawl errors and improving overall website performance and SEO effectiveness.
2Managing Website Structure and Navigation
Many times website navigation and structure become a problem.
- For this try to keep the navigation short and have schema markup for structured data.
- Managing your website’s layout and navigation is crucial for technical SEO. It involves organizing your pages logically, ensuring links work well, and having clear, descriptive URLs. This helps users find what they need easily and aids search engines in understanding and ranking your site better.
- For example, if you have an e-commerce website, organizing products into categories and subcategories with clear navigation menus can make it easier for both users and search engines to find specific items.
- Having a clear website structure and easy navigation is essential for SEO. It means arranging your content logically, using menus and links effectively, and ensuring users can move around your site smoothly. This not only keeps visitors happy but also helps search engines like Google find and rank your pages accurately.
- For instance, if you run a blog, categorizing posts by topics and providing a search bar can improve user experience and search engine visibility. It will assist in ranking your blogs faster.
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Resolving Duplicate Content Issues
Most of the time there is duplicate content on the same website which makes it difficult for the users and crawlers to target one specific page. To resolve it you must either add a redirect link to a canonical page, avoid duplicating content, or add HTML or a canonical link on duplicate pages.
Improving Website Speed and Performance
To improve the website’s speed and performance, trying to make minimum requests to the server, helps load the page fast. Minimize HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. Use HTTPS links, work on optimizing the images, working on reducing the redirects. All these methods help in increasing the website speed and performance.
Ensuring Mobile-Friendliness and Responsiveness
Another technical problem is mobile friendliness and responsiveness. Responsiveness refers to the ability to adapt to any screen display and work perfectly. To ensure this you can use responsive and simple designs, use large buttons, avoid having pop-ups, have optimized images, and have easily readable font.
Conclusion
SEO or search engine optimization is the basic requirement that enhances the reach, ranking, traffic, and performance of the website. On-page SEO and technical SEO are a part of the optimization. Technical SEO focuses on the Indexability, performance and crawlability of the webpage.
It includes mobile optimization, CSS and JavaScript analyzing, robots.txt, XML sitemaps, DOM manipulation, URL and site errors, crawl errors, website navigation and structure, user-friendliness, website speed and rendering issues, etc.
Technical SEO audit helps in addressing all these and resolving them. Regular technical analysis helps in increasing the reach and making the website free from any errors and hindrances, further, keep it updated. Going for basics involves analysis of indexing, crawling, speed, performance, duplicate content, cannibalization, HTTPS implementation, schema markup, navigation and many more.
Getting onto a more advanced stage involves hreflang implementation, hosting configuration, backlink analysis, JavaScript and CSS usage, etc. Technical SEO audit helps you have a well-organised, structured, search-engine-optimized website that is user-friendly and impressive.
