Most technical SEO audits fail for the same reason: they produce a 140-item checklist sorted by tool category instead of by impact. The client reads it, feels overwhelmed, fixes the three easiest things, and nothing changes.
This is the order I actually work in. It is deliberately sequenced so that each stage tells you whether the next stage matters.
Stage 1 — Can Google reach it at all?
Nothing below this line is worth checking until this line is clean.
- robots.txt — does it block anything important, including CSS and JavaScript needed for rendering?
- noindex tags — check the rendered HTML and the HTTP response headers.
X-Robots-Tagdoes not appear in page source. - HTTP status codes — are important URLs returning 200? Any soft 404s returning 200 with an error page?
- One resolvable version of the site — http/https, www/non-www, trailing slash. Everything else should redirect once, not chain.
- Server response and availability — timeouts and 5xx errors during crawl are a red flag Google sees too.
Stage 2 — Is it actually indexed?
- Search Console Indexing > Pages: read every “not indexed” reason and the count for each
- Compare indexed pages against the number of pages you believe should be indexed — a large gap is the finding
- Canonical tags: does every indexable page self-reference? Any pointing at the homepage or at redirects?
- XML sitemap: is the correct file submitted, does it list only indexable 200-status URLs, and is the discovered count non-zero? Verify the filename, not just that a sitemap exists
- Duplicate and near-duplicate clusters: parameters, print versions, pagination, tag archives, attachment pages
If indexation is the problem, stop here and fix it. See why pages don’t get indexed.
Stage 3 — Is the structure telling Google what matters?
- Click depth — anything more than three clicks from the homepage is deprioritised
- Orphan pages — every URL with zero internal inlinks
- Internal link distribution — do your money pages have more internal links than your About page? Frequently not
- Anchor text — descriptive or a wall of “read more”?
- Breadcrumbs and hierarchy — present, consistent, and marked up
- URL structure — readable, stable, no unnecessary depth
Details in internal linking.
Stage 4 — Can it be rendered and understood?
- Rendered HTML vs source HTML — for JavaScript-heavy sites, does critical content and do internal links exist after rendering?
- One H1 per page, and a logical heading hierarchy that does not skip levels
- Title tags — unique, descriptive, and not truncated into meaninglessness
- Meta descriptions — present on every indexable page. Google rewrites them often, but a missing one guarantees a rewrite
- Structured data — valid, consistent with visible page content, and covering the entities that matter
- Image alt text — present and descriptive. This is usually the largest single count in any audit
- Hreflang, if you have multiple languages or regions
Stage 5 — Page experience
Deliberately last, because a fast page that is not indexed is still not ranking.
- Core Web Vitals from field data in Search Console, not a single lab score from a testing tool
- LCP — usually the hero image or a render-blocking stylesheet. Never lazy-load the LCP element
- CLS — missing image dimensions, late-loading fonts, injected banners
- INP — heavy third-party scripts and over-eager JavaScript
- Image weight and format, render-blocking CSS/JS, font loading strategy
- Mobile usability — tap targets, viewport, no horizontal scroll
On WordPress this stage is mostly plugin and page-builder work — see WordPress SEO.
Stage 6 — Local and entity signals, where relevant
- LocalBusiness structured data matching the visible NAP exactly
- Google Business Profile consistency with the site — categories, services, hours
- Location pages that genuinely differ from one another
Covered in local SEO services and Google Business Profile optimisation.
How to prioritise the output
Score every finding on two axes — likely impact and effort — and sort into three buckets:
- Critical: blocking indexation or serving errors. Fix this week.
- High impact: structural and internal linking work, canonical consistency, missing metadata at scale. Fix this month.
- Refinement: marginal speed gains, alt text on decorative images, schema nice-to-haves. Fix when convenient.
Then state explicitly what you are choosing not to do and why. An audit that pretends everything is urgent is an audit nobody acts on.
Record a baseline before you change anything
Indexed page count, impressions and clicks, average position, Core Web Vitals pass rate, orphan page count, crawl errors. Without a baseline you cannot demonstrate the work produced anything, and you will be asked.
Frequently asked questions
What should a technical SEO audit include?
Crawlability and status codes, indexation and canonical analysis, site architecture and internal linking, rendering and on-page technical elements, structured data, Core Web Vitals from field data, and local or entity signals where relevant — sequenced so that access issues are resolved before optimisation work begins.
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
A small business site takes a few days of focused work. Large, heavily customised or multi-language sites take longer, mostly because the crawl and the duplication analysis take longer to interpret. The bottleneck is judgement, not crawling.
What tools do I need?
A crawler such as Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit, Google Search Console for indexation and field performance data, PageSpeed Insights or CrUX for Core Web Vitals, and a structured data validator. Search Console is non-negotiable — it is the only source of what Google actually thinks.
Should I fix speed or indexation first?
Indexation, every time. A fast page that is not in the index cannot rank. Core Web Vitals are a refinement on pages that already qualify.
How often should I run a technical audit?
A full audit annually, or after any redesign, migration or significant traffic drop. Between audits, monitor Search Console coverage and Core Web Vitals monthly — most problems announce themselves there first.
Can I do a technical SEO audit myself?
The data collection, yes — the tools are accessible and much of it is mechanical. The difficult part is prioritisation: deciding which of two hundred findings actually matter for your site, and being willing to ignore the rest.
Want this run on your site?
This is the exact process behind every technical SEO engagement I take on — including implementation of the safe fixes rather than a document you have to interpret. Send me your domain and I will tell you what I can see from the outside first.
