Are you certain your website is technically sound? Consider this:
Over 3.5 billion Google searches happen every day, and nearly 99% of users stay on the first page.
If your site isn’t appearing there, you’re missing out on valuable traffic. A technical SEO audit can help fix that.
Identifying and resolving technical issues improves your website’s crawlability, boosts discoverability, and optimizes your crawl budget. You can also find broken links, enhance mobile responsiveness, and increase page speed—all crucial factors for SEO and SERP visibility.
A properly executed audit ensures your site performs well, providing a better experience for users while signaling quality to search engines.
This guide walks you through a technical SEO audit step by step so you can optimize your site efficiently.
Key Takeaways
- A technical SEO audit evaluates a website’s backend and performance factors that affect search engine visibility, such as broken links, coding errors, and page speed.
- It’s essential for improving rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) and enhancing the overall user experience.
- A technically optimized website supports positive user engagement, which can lead to higher organic traffic.
- Audits help improve discoverability and optimize your crawl budget, making it easier for search engines to index your pages.
- Resolving technical issues like broken links and mobile optimization enhances site speed, overall SEO performance, and visibility.
What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is a crucial part of website maintenance. It focuses on optimizing the technical aspects of your site to ensure it performs well for both users and search engines.
These audits examine elements that impact search engine performance, including page load speeds, canonical tags, and schema markup. They also check that your site is fully accessible to search engine crawlers.
If your website contains broken links or coding errors, search engines like Google may struggle to index your pages, which can lead to lower rankings.
Conducting a technical SEO audit helps you uncover opportunities to outperform competitors, identify weak points, fix exit issues, and improve the overall user experience. Alongside technical audits, you should also conduct on-page and off-page SEO audits regularly to cover all aspects of your site’s SEO health.
Key Elements of a Technical SEO Audit
When performing a technical SEO audit, focus on these three main areas:
1. Indexation
Indexation refers to how search engines add your pages to their databases for relevant search results. Fixing issues like incorrect redirects, broken meta tags, and sitemap errors ensures your pages appear in SERPs.
2. Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals measure user experience, including page speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Sites that fail these benchmarks risk lower rankings and reduced traffic due to poor user experience.
3. Performance
Website performance covers how quickly your pages load and how efficiently users can interact with them. Optimizing performance improves both Core Web Vitals and overall user satisfaction.
If time is limited, apply the 80/20 rule: focus on the 20% of issues that will deliver 80% of the results. This ensures you address the most impactful technical problems first.
How to Run a Technical SEO Site Audit
SEO rules are always evolving. Each time a major search engine updates its algorithm, SEO experts must adjust their strategies.
The advantage is that technical SEO changes happen less frequently compared to on-page SEO. Still, it’s something you can’t ignore. As a foundation, you should:
- Make sure your site is fully crawlable and indexable.
- Optimize performance and loading speed across all devices.
- Maintain a clean site architecture and logical URL structure.
- Resolve technical issues and keep overall site health strong.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to carrying out a technical SEO site audit.
1. Crawl Your Website
The first step is confirming that your site can be crawled properly.
Crawling allows search engines to detect and index your content. Bots scan your pages, assess relevance, and determine rankings in search results.
A crawl audit can uncover problems such as duplicate content, broken links, redirect chains, pagination issues, or errors with canonical tags.
Start with a crawl before making any other moves. Tools like Ubersuggest, Screaming Frog, Semrush, or Ahrefs can do this effectively.
Using Ubersuggest:
- Step 1: Enter your URL and click Search.
- Step 2: Select Site Audit in the sidebar.
- Step 3: Run the scan and review the results. You can click on any issue to see details and suggested fixes.
If you don’t want to rely on tools, you can also carry out checks manually—we’ll cover that next.
2. Perform a Manual Google Search
Simple Google searches can give you a rough idea of how your site is performing. For instance, search your business name to see if your site ranks first.
When checking results, ask yourself:
- How many of your pages are showing in relevant searches?
- Does your site rank first for its own name?
- What overall position do your pages appear in?
To see which pages search engines are indexing, try a “site:rootdomain” search. Other tools like Google Search Console’s URL Inspection, Index Checker, or Screaming Frog can also help detect unindexed pages or 404 errors.
3. Ensure Only One Version of Your Site Exists
If multiple versions of your website are live, search engines can get confused about which one to rank.
For example, you might have both desktop and mobile versions competing with each other, or localized sites for different audiences. Other cases may include separate product/service microsites or backup sites.
To fix this, implement canonical tags. These indicate the “master version” of a page, signaling to search engines which version should be prioritized.
4. Run On-Page Technical SEO Checks
Your website may look fine, but only a technical check will confirm whether it’s optimized for search engines. This includes reviewing:
- Broken links
- URL structures
- XML sitemaps
- Indexed vs. non-indexed pages
Technical Tags
Review canonical tags to ensure they are present and correct. Also, check your robots.txt file, which tells crawlers which pages they should or shouldn’t crawl.
Clear Hierarchy
Your site should follow a logical structure so both users and search engines can easily navigate. For instance, all services should fall under a “Services” tab, and products should be easy to locate within a few clicks.
Schema Markup
Schema markup helps search engines interpret your content, whether it’s videos, recipes, reviews, or listings. Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to confirm your markup is correctly applied.
5. Review Internal and External Links
Strong site hierarchies improve SEO rankings, and links are a big part of that.
Use tools like Screaming Frog to identify broken links or redirect chains. Simply enter your URL, start the crawl, and review the “Links” and “Issues” reports for detailed data.
6. Test Site Speed
Page speed is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, which track usability through three main metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): page loading time
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): whether the layout shifts during load
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): responsiveness to user actions
Your goal is a fast, smooth-loading site—e.g., an LCP under 2.5 seconds.
Slow speed can result from heavy images, unoptimized videos, server delays, third-party scripts, or lack of caching.
With Ubersuggest:
- Step 1: Enter your URL and click Search.
- Step 2: Select Site Audit.
- Step 3: Scroll to Site Speed to review results.
7. Use Analytics and Compare Data
Check if your analytics tool (e.g., Google Analytics) is correctly tracking live data. If not, your tracking code may be missing or misplaced.
Once it’s working, compare analytics results with your earlier “site:rootdomain” search. The number of pages reported should align—if not, certain pages may not be indexed or crawled properly.
8. Test Mobile Responsiveness
With nearly 60% of global traffic coming from mobile, Google now crawls entirely with its mobile-first index.
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you risk losing both users and rankings.
Tools like Small SEO Tools, SEOptimer, or Pingdom can test responsiveness and highlight areas for improvement.
9. Identify Coding Issues
Finally, review your site for coding errors. Common problems include:
- Missing or incorrect canonical tags
- Poorly set hreflang tags
- Metadata errors
You can use Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, or international targeting reports to find and resolve these issues.
FAQs on Technical SEO Site Audit
Q1. What is a technical SEO site audit?
A technical SEO site audit is the process of analyzing your website’s technical elements—such as crawlability, site speed, indexing, and mobile performance—to ensure search engines can properly access, understand, and rank your content.
Q2. Why is a technical SEO audit important?
A technical audit helps identify issues that may prevent your website from ranking well, such as broken links, duplicate content, slow-loading pages, or indexing errors. Fixing these improves both user experience and search visibility.
Q3. How often should I conduct a technical SEO audit?
It’s recommended to perform a technical SEO audit at least every 6–12 months. However, if your site undergoes major updates or you notice ranking drops, running an audit sooner is a good idea.
Q4. What tools can I use for a technical SEO site audit?
Popular tools include Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest. These help with crawling, indexing checks, site speed analysis, and detecting technical errors.
Q5. What are the main steps in a technical SEO audit?
The process usually involves:
- Crawling your website
- Performing a manual Google search
- Checking for duplicate or multiple site versions
- Running on-page technical checks
- Reviewing internal and external links
- Testing site speed and Core Web Vitals
- Ensuring mobile responsiveness and fixing coding issues
Q6. How long does a technical SEO audit take?
The time required depends on your site size. Small websites may take a few hours, while larger, complex sites may take several days to complete a thorough audit.
Q7. Can I do a technical SEO audit myself?
Yes, with the right tools and knowledge, you can perform a basic audit on your own. However, for larger sites or detailed fixes, working with an SEO professional is often more efficient.
Q8. What happens if I don’t do a technical SEO audit?
Without regular audits, issues like crawl errors, broken links, or poor mobile usability may go unnoticed, which can hurt search rankings and reduce organic traffic over time.
