Technical SEO Audit Checklist for Business Websites: 40 Checks, Ranked by What to Fix First
Quick answer
A technical SEO audit checklist is a list of checks that confirm search engines can crawl, index, render and load your website without errors. For a business website, the checks that matter most are robots.txt and noindex blockers, HTTPS and server errors, indexing status in Google Search Console, redirects and canonicals, Core Web Vitals and mobile parity. Fix anything that blocks indexing first, then errors, then speed and structured data.
A good-looking website will not rank if search engines cannot crawl it, index it or load it quickly.
This technical SEO checklist gives you 40 checks in six areas. Each one says how to test it, which free tool to use and how urgent it is, so you know what to fix first. It ends with a copyable technical SEO audit checklist template and notes for WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify. The checks come from Google Search Central documentation and each tool's own help pages, not from a single client project, and the sources are linked throughout.
What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is a structured review of the parts of your site that decide whether search engines can find, render, index and serve your pages: robots.txt, noindex tags, sitemaps, status codes, redirects, canonicals, HTTPS, speed, mobile parity and structured data. It answers one question: is anything technical stopping good pages from ranking?
A full SEO audit adds on-page, content, local and backlink reviews on top. The technical audit comes first, because better content cannot help a page that is blocked, broken or missing from the index.
| Technical SEO audit | Full SEO audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Question | Can search engines crawl, index and load my pages? | Why am I not getting the rankings and leads I want? |
| Covers | Crawling, indexing, status codes, redirects, canonicals, speed, mobile, schema, rendering | Everything technical, plus keywords, content quality, on-page elements, local signals and backlinks |
| Main tools | Search Console, a crawler, PageSpeed Insights | The same, plus keyword and backlink tools |
Some industries add their own layer. Medical websites, for example, also need checks for provider directories, medical schema and tracking on sensitive pages; our healthcare SEO audit guide covers those.
How to Do a Technical SEO Audit in 7 Steps
The checklist tells you what to look at. This is the order to work in, so each step feeds the next.
1. Set a baseline
Verify a Domain property in Google Search Console, which covers all subdomains and both http and https, and add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import verified sites from Search Console. Write down indexed pages, clicks and Core Web Vitals status so you can measure the effect of your fixes.
2. Crawl the site
Run a crawler over the whole site. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls up to 500 URLs for free, which covers most small business sites. Export status codes, titles, canonicals, robots directives and crawl depth.
3. Compare three lists
Line up your crawl, your XML sitemap and the Page indexing report. A URL in the sitemap but not the crawl is probably orphaned; one that is crawled but not indexed needs a reason. Treat a site: search as a rough check only, because Google says it does not necessarily return every indexed URL.
4. Inspect your most important URLs
Run your homepage, main service or product pages and top articles through the URL Inspection tool. Check that each one is indexed, that the Google-selected canonical is the one you declared, and that the rendered HTML contains your content and links.
5. Measure speed by template
Test one URL per template in PageSpeed Insights. Its field data shows what real visitors experienced over the previous 28 days. Use the lab data to debug, not to judge.
6. Prioritize
Label every issue Critical, High, Medium or Low using the priority matrix below, then log it in the template at the end of this post with an owner and a due date.
7. Fix, validate and re-crawl
Once an issue is fixed everywhere, use Validate fix in the Page indexing report. Google says validation usually takes up to about two weeks. Re-crawl the site to confirm nothing else broke, and put the next audit on the calendar.
Technical SEO Audit Checklist 2026: 40 Checks in 6 Areas
The 40 checks below are grouped by area and numbered, so you can refer to them in the priority matrix and the template. Each one carries a priority label:
5 checks
This week
15 checks
This month
17 checks
This quarter
3 checks
When it applies
- Crawlability and indexing: checks 1 to 11
- Site architecture and internal linking: checks 12 to 17
- HTTPS, status codes, redirects and canonicals: checks 18 to 26
- Core Web Vitals and mobile: checks 27 to 33
- Structured data and JavaScript rendering: checks 34 to 38
- International and AI search: checks 39 to 40
Checks 1 to 11
Crawlability and Indexing Checks
Start here, because nothing else on the list matters for a page Google cannot find or will not index. Two rules catch out a lot of small sites. First, robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing: Google says it "is not a mechanism for keeping a web page out of Google". Second, a noindex tag only works if Google can crawl the page and see it, and Google does not support noindex rules inside robots.txt. So never block a page in robots.txt and noindex it at the same time.
Do not panic about every URL in the Not indexed list. Google says in its Page indexing report help that you should not expect every URL to be indexed, only canonical pages. Focus on the pages you want found. Most small business sites can also skip crawl budget work: Google's crawl budget guide is written for sites with over 1 million pages, or over 10,000 pages that change daily. For a sitemap, list only the URLs you want in search results; Google ignores the priority and changefreq fields and caps each sitemap file at 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google Search Console (Domain property) and Bing Webmaster Tools are verified | Confirm you can open both. A Domain property covers every subdomain and both http and https. | High |
| 2 | robots.txt does not block pages, CSS or JavaScript you need in search | Open yoursite.com/robots.txt, then run key URLs through URL Inspection. | Critical |
| 3 | No accidental noindex on pages that should rank | Crawl for noindex in meta robots tags and X-Robots-Tag headers, especially after a launch or redesign. | Critical |
| 4 | XML sitemap lists only canonical, indexable URLs that return 200, and is submitted | Crawl the sitemap URLs in Screaming Frog and check the Sitemaps report status. | High |
| 5 | Every important page is indexed, or you know why it is not | Review the reasons under Why pages aren't indexed in the Page indexing report. | High |
| 6 | Your top revenue pages pass URL Inspection | Inspect your 10 most important URLs: indexed, crawled as a smartphone, Google-selected canonical matches yours. | High |
| 7 | Staging sites and low-value utility pages stay out of the index | Check staging subdomains, thank-you pages, cart pages, internal search results and tag archives for noindex or a login. | Medium |
| 8 | Parameter and filter URLs do not create crawlable duplicates | Count sort, filter, tracking and session ID URLs in your crawl. | Medium |
| 9 | No soft 404s | Filter the Page indexing report for Soft 404 and make removed pages return a real 404 or 410. | Medium |
| 10 | Crawl stats show a healthy host status | Check robots.txt fetching, DNS resolution, server connectivity and response time in the Crawl stats report. | Medium |
| 11 | Server logs confirm Googlebot reaches your key sections (larger sites) | Sample a month of server logs and count verified Googlebot requests by folder. | Low |
Checks 12 to 17
Site Architecture and Internal Linking Checks
Internal links are how crawlers discover pages and judge which ones matter. Google says it can generally only crawl a link that is an <a> element with an href attribute, so menus built from buttons or script click handlers can hide whole sections of a site. The same page asks for anchor text that describes the page you are linking to.
Keep your money pages close to the homepage. Three clicks is a common rule of thumb, not a Google rule, but the fewer links it takes to reach a page, the easier it is for visitors and crawlers to find. An orphan page, one with no internal links pointing to it, may only be found through your sitemap, if at all.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Key pages sit within about three clicks of the homepage | Sort your crawl by crawl depth and look for service, location and product pages that sit deep. | High |
| 13 | No orphan pages | Compare crawled URLs with your sitemap and analytics landing pages. Pages missing from the crawl have no internal links. | High |
| 14 | Menus and internal links are real <a href> links | Inspect the rendered HTML of menus, buttons and load-more controls. | High |
| 15 | No broken internal links | Crawl for internal links that return 4xx and fix them at the source. | High |
| 16 | Internal anchor text describes the target page | Review the anchors pointing at service pages and replace vague ones like click here. | Medium |
| 17 | URLs are short, readable and consistent, with breadcrumbs on deeper pages | Spot-check URL patterns for lowercase words, hyphens and no stray IDs. | Low |
Checks 18 to 26
HTTPS, Status Code, Redirect and Canonical Checks
Status codes tell crawlers what happened when they asked for a page. According to Google's documentation on HTTP status codes, 5xx and 429 errors make its crawlers slow down, and pages that keep failing can eventually drop out of the index. Google follows up to 10 redirect hops, but every hop wastes crawl time and slows visitors, so link straight to the final URL. Check the Manual actions and Security issues reports while you are there; either one can hurt visibility on its own.
For duplicate pages, Google treats redirects and rel="canonical" as strong signals, recommends a self-referencing canonical on the canonical page itself, and says not to use robots.txt for canonicalization, according to its guide to consolidating duplicate URLs. After a redesign, map every old URL to its closest new equivalent. Sending everything to the homepage throws away the relevance those pages built. Planning a relaunch? Our website redesign SEO checklist covers the redirect map, launch day and the first 90 days.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | The whole site loads over HTTPS with a valid certificate, and http redirects to https | Load the http:// version of key pages and check the HTTPS report in Search Console. | Critical |
| 19 | No mixed content | Crawl for http:// images, scripts, stylesheets and form actions on https pages. | Medium |
| 20 | One preferred hostname and URL format | Confirm www or non-www, trailing slash and uppercase variants all 301 to one version. | High |
| 21 | No 5xx errors or timeouts on important pages | Crawl for 5xx responses and compare with Crawl stats and your hosting uptime reports. | Critical |
| 22 | Manual actions and Security issues reports are clear | Open both reports in Search Console. | Critical |
| 23 | No redirect chains or loops, and internal links point to final URLs | Run a redirect chain report and update internal links to skip the hops. | Medium |
| 24 | Old URLs from redesigns and migrations 301 to the closest matching page | Test a list of old URLs from backups, analytics or Search Console in list mode. | High |
| 25 | Each indexable page has a self-referencing canonical that points to a 200, indexable URL | Check the canonical column in your crawl, then compare with the Google-selected canonical in URL Inspection. | High |
| 26 | Near-duplicate pages are merged, rewritten or canonicalized | Review near-duplicate reports, especially location and service page templates. | Medium |
Checks 27 to 33
Core Web Vitals and Mobile Checks
Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, but also that good scores alone do not guarantee top rankings. Measure field data against the "good" thresholds at the 75th percentile of page loads: LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less. INP replaced First Input Delay on March 12, 2024, so an audit that still reports FID is out of date.
Google uses the mobile version of your pages for indexing and ranking and will not load content that needs a swipe, click or typing to appear, so text hidden behind mobile tabs or "read more" scripts may never be seen. One quick win: never lazy-load your main hero image. The web.dev guide to optimizing LCP says doing so always delays LCP.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is 2.5 seconds or less | Check field data for your home, service, blog and product templates. | High |
| 28 | Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is 200 milliseconds or less | Check field data, then record slow interactions in the Chrome DevTools Performance panel. | High |
| 29 | Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is 0.1 or less | Reserve space for images, embeds, banners and cookie notices. | Medium |
| 30 | Images are compressed, sized and in modern formats, and the main hero image is not lazy-loaded | Review the image opportunities in Lighthouse and check the loading attribute on the hero image. | Medium |
| 31 | Third-party scripts earn their place | Test key templates with and without chat widgets, pop-ups, heatmaps and extra tags. | Medium |
| 32 | Mobile pages carry the same content, links, structured data, title and meta description as desktop | Compare the rendered mobile HTML in URL Inspection with the desktop page. | High |
| 33 | Pages are usable on a phone | Check the viewport tag, text size, tap targets and intrusive pop-ups on a real phone. | Medium |
Checks 34 to 38
Structured Data and JavaScript Rendering Checks
Structured data helps search engines understand what a page is about, but Google's structured data guidelines say valid markup makes a rich result possible, not guaranteed, and that you should not mark up content readers cannot see. Do not add FAQ markup just for rich results either: Google stopped showing FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026, although FAQPage is still valid schema.org markup.
JavaScript-heavy sites go through three phases: crawling, rendering and indexing. Check the rendered HTML, not just the source, and make sure a missing page returns a real 404 status instead of an error message on a 200 page. Google also recommends a unique title and meta description for every route.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | Organization or LocalBusiness markup on the homepage and contact page | Validate the JSON-LD on both pages. | Medium |
| 35 | Page-type markup (Article, Product, BreadcrumbList) validates without errors | Run one URL per template through the Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator. | Medium |
| 36 | Structured data matches what visitors can see | Compare prices, ratings, dates and names in the markup with the page. | Medium |
| 37 | Main content and links appear in the rendered HTML | Use View crawled page and the live test in URL Inspection. | High |
| 38 | JavaScript routes return real status codes and unique titles, meta descriptions and canonicals | Load a made-up URL and confirm a 404, then crawl with JavaScript rendering turned on. | Medium |
Checks 39 to 40
International and AI Search Checks
hreflang only matters if you serve more than one language or region. When you do, each version must list itself as well as every other version, or Google may ignore the annotations.
AI search readiness is mostly the same work as the rest of this list. Google says there are no additional technical requirements to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. The one extra technical check is crawler access, and it is not only a robots.txt question. Since July 1, 2025, Cloudflare has asked every new domain at sign-up whether to allow AI crawlers, so review your CDN and firewall bot settings as well as your robots.txt file. Which AI user agents to allow or block, and the exact robots.txt rules for each, are covered in our AI SEO strategy for 2026.
| # | Check | How to test it | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39 | hreflang annotations are reciprocal and include x-default (multi-language sites only) | Crawl hreflang tags and check that every version lists itself and all other versions. | Low |
| 40 | robots.txt, CDN and firewall settings allow the search and AI crawlers you want | Review robots.txt user agents and your CDN or firewall bot settings. | Medium |
Priority Matrix: What to Fix First
A long list of issues is only useful if you know the order. Work through the tiers from top to bottom. Within a tier, fix revenue pages first (services, locations, top products) and favor fixes that repair a whole template at once.
| Priority | What it means | Fix within | Checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | Stops pages from being crawled, indexed or served, or puts the site at risk. | This week | 2, 3, 18, 21, 22 |
| High | Directly weakens indexing, rankings or the experience on important pages. | This month | 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 37 |
| Medium | Wastes crawling, dilutes signals or slows pages without blocking them. | This quarter | 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 19, 23, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40 |
| Low | Matters mainly for larger or multi-language sites. | When it applies | 11, 17, 39 |
The time frames are a suggested schedule for a small team, not a rule. A Critical issue such as a sitewide noindex tag deserves a same-day fix.
Free Tools for a Technical SEO Audit
You can run every check in this list without paying for software. These are the technical SEO audit tools used throughout this checklist, described from each vendor's documentation. Pricing and limits were checked in September 2026.
| Tool | Cost | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Free | Page indexing, Sitemaps, URL Inspection, Crawl stats, Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, Manual actions and Security issues reports |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Free | Bing indexing, URL Inspection, sitemaps and IndexNow submissions |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Free up to 500 URLs; a licence is £199 a year | Full crawls: status codes, redirects, canonicals, directives, crawl depth and duplicates. JavaScript rendering is a paid feature. |
| Ahrefs Webmaster Tools | Free for sites you verify | Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits per project per month, plus a view of your backlinks |
| PageSpeed Insights | Free | Field and lab Core Web Vitals for any URL |
| Rich Results Test | Free | Whether a page is eligible for the rich results Google supports, and the errors blocking it |
| Schema Markup Validator | Free | Syntax errors in any schema.org markup, including types Google does not use for rich results |
| Chrome DevTools and Lighthouse | Free, built into Chrome | Rendered HTML, network requests, mixed content and performance traces |
Want a quick first look before a full crawl? Run a free SEO audit on your website with our free SEO audit tool. It checks a single URL for common SEO, speed, security and mobile issues. It does not crawl the whole site or replace Search Console.
Platform Notes for WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify
Most small business sites run on a website builder or CMS that handles some of these checks for you and hides others. Here is what to look at on each.
WordPress
Since version 5.5, WordPress builds a sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml, and SEO plugins often replace it with their own; submit only the live one. That core sitemap switches off when the site is set to discourage search engines, so confirm the Search engine visibility box under Settings, Reading is unchecked after launch. Plugins and page builders add scripts, so test Core Web Vitals per template.
Wix
Wix updates your sitemap automatically at /sitemap.xml, but changing a page's canonical tag can drop that URL from the sitemap, so re-run check 4 after any canonical edits. The robots.txt editor is an advanced setting, and Wix says its Customer Care team cannot help with changes you make there.
Squarespace
Squarespace generates /sitemap.xml automatically and leaves out disabled and password-protected pages. Every Squarespace site shares the same robots.txt file, which users cannot access or edit. To keep a single page out of search, use the Hide page from search results toggle in the page's SEO settings, and make sure Block Search engine crawlers under Settings, Crawlers is off, according to Squarespace's guide to hiding pages from search results.
Shopify
Shopify generates sitemap.xml automatically with your products, collections, pages and blog posts. Its default robots.txt already blocks cart, checkout, filtered collection and search pages. You can customize it with a robots.txt.liquid template, but Shopify calls this an unsupported customization and warns that incorrect use can result in loss of all traffic. Apps are the usual source of extra scripts, so give check 31 extra attention.
Beyond Technical: 8 On-Page and Content Checks for a Full SEO Audit
If you came here for an SEO audit checklist for small business websites, the 40 technical checks are the foundation, not the whole job. A full audit also reviews what is on the page and who links to it. These 8 checks are separate from the 40 above:
- Title tags. Every indexable page has a unique, descriptive title that leads with the words searchers use.
- Meta descriptions. Each page has its own description. Google primarily uses page content for snippets and may use your description when it describes the page better, so write it for clicks.
- Headings and intent. One H1 that matches what the searcher wants, with H2s that answer their obvious follow-up questions.
- One page per topic. No two pages compete for the same main keyword. Merge or re-angle pages that do.
- Thin or outdated content. Update, merge (with a 301 redirect) or remove pages that are thin, stale or overlapping.
- Local signals. Your Google Business Profile and your name, address and phone number match across the site and directories. Businesses with several branches should follow a plan for local SEO for multiple locations.
- Backlinks. Review your top linking sites in the Links report in Search Console, and grow the profile through white hat link building rather than paid link schemes.
- Conversion paths. Forms, calls to action and checkout work on a phone. Online stores can go further with an ecommerce CRO audit.
What a Technical SEO Audit Costs: DIY vs Freelancer vs Agency
There is no standard price. Semrush's technical SEO audit guide puts a do-it-yourself audit at about $99 to $300, mostly tool fees, a freelancer at $300 to $2,000, and an agency audit of a complex site at $2,000 to $10,000 or more. SeoProfy (updated May 2026) says an SEO audit typically costs $500 to $5,000 and cites Clutch data of $100 to $5,000 for a technical audit. Price mostly follows page count, platform complexity and whether fixes are included.
For a small site, the free tools above are enough to find the problems. What you pay a professional for is interpreting the data and making the fixes. BizTech's monthly SEO plans include this work: the SEO Starter plan (from $320 a month) includes a basic technical SEO audit, and the SEO Growth plan ($650 a month) includes a full technical SEO audit and fixes. See SEO packages and pricing for what each plan covers.
Free Technical SEO Audit Checklist Template
Copy the block below and paste it into Google Sheets or Excel, then split the text into columns using the comma as the separator. Or save it as a .csv file and open it. It holds all 40 checks with their priority, plus empty Status, Owner, Due date and Notes columns so you can turn findings into a fix plan.
#,Area,Check,Priority,Status,Owner,Due date,Notes
1,Crawl and index,Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools verified,High,,,,
2,Crawl and index,robots.txt not blocking key pages or resources,Critical,,,,
3,Crawl and index,No accidental noindex tags,Critical,,,,
4,Crawl and index,Clean XML sitemap submitted,High,,,,
5,Crawl and index,Important pages indexed,High,,,,
6,Crawl and index,Top pages pass URL Inspection,High,,,,
7,Crawl and index,Staging and utility pages kept out of the index,Medium,,,,
8,Crawl and index,No crawlable parameter duplicates,Medium,,,,
9,Crawl and index,No soft 404s,Medium,,,,
10,Crawl and index,Healthy host status in Crawl stats,Medium,,,,
11,Crawl and index,Log file sample reviewed,Low,,,,
12,Architecture,Key pages within three clicks,High,,,,
13,Architecture,No orphan pages,High,,,,
14,Architecture,Links are crawlable <a href> links,High,,,,
15,Architecture,No broken internal links,High,,,,
16,Architecture,Descriptive internal anchor text,Medium,,,,
17,Architecture,Readable URLs and breadcrumbs,Low,,,,
18,HTTPS and status,HTTPS everywhere with http redirected,Critical,,,,
19,HTTPS and status,No mixed content,Medium,,,,
20,HTTPS and status,One preferred hostname and URL format,High,,,,
21,HTTPS and status,No 5xx errors or timeouts,Critical,,,,
22,HTTPS and status,No manual actions or security issues,Critical,,,,
23,HTTPS and status,No redirect chains or loops,Medium,,,,
24,HTTPS and status,Old URLs redirected to closest match,High,,,,
25,HTTPS and status,Correct self-referencing canonicals,High,,,,
26,HTTPS and status,Near-duplicates consolidated,Medium,,,,
27,Speed and mobile,LCP 2.5 s or less,High,,,,
28,Speed and mobile,INP 200 ms or less,High,,,,
29,Speed and mobile,CLS 0.1 or less,Medium,,,,
30,Speed and mobile,Images optimized and hero not lazy-loaded,Medium,,,,
31,Speed and mobile,Third-party scripts audited,Medium,,,,
32,Speed and mobile,Mobile and desktop parity,High,,,,
33,Speed and mobile,Mobile usability,Medium,,,,
34,Schema and JS,Organization or LocalBusiness schema,Medium,,,,
35,Schema and JS,Page-type schema validates,Medium,,,,
36,Schema and JS,Schema matches visible content,Medium,,,,
37,Schema and JS,Content and links in rendered HTML,High,,,,
38,Schema and JS,JS routes have real status codes and metadata,Medium,,,,
39,International and AI,hreflang reciprocal with x-default,Low,,,,
40,International and AI,Search and AI crawlers allowed,Medium,,,,Technical SEO Audit FAQs
What is a technical SEO audit?
A technical SEO audit is a review of how well search engines can crawl, render, index and load your website. It checks robots.txt, noindex tags, sitemaps, status codes, redirects, canonicals, HTTPS, Core Web Vitals, mobile parity and structured data. Unlike a full SEO audit, it does not judge keyword targeting, content quality or backlinks, although most full audits start with it.
What should be included in a technical SEO audit checklist?
At minimum: crawl and index controls (robots.txt, noindex, sitemaps and the Page indexing report), site architecture and internal links, HTTPS and status codes, redirects and canonicals, Core Web Vitals and mobile checks, structured data and JavaScript rendering, and crawler access for search and AI bots. Each item should say how to test it and how urgent it is.
How often should you do a technical SEO audit?
A full technical SEO audit every quarter is a sensible default. Semrush recommends at least once per quarter, and monthly for larger or frequently updated sites. Also audit after any redesign, platform migration, domain change or bulk content change, and check the Page indexing and Core Web Vitals reports in Search Console every month between audits.
Source: Semrush
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
It depends mostly on page count. Semrush estimates about one day to audit a site under 500 pages plus three to seven days of fixes, one to three days to audit 500 to 2,000 pages, and about a week for larger sites, whose fixes can take one to two months. Validating fixes in Search Console can add up to about two weeks.
Source: Semrush
Can I do a technical SEO audit myself?
Yes. A small business owner can run most of this checklist with free tools: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and the free version of Screaming Frog, which crawls up to 500 URLs. The harder part is fixing what you find, such as redirects, rendering or speed issues, which often needs a developer or your platform's support.
What tools do you need for a technical SEO audit?
You need Google's own data, a crawler and a speed tool. Google Search Console covers indexing, sitemaps, URL Inspection and Core Web Vitals. Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools crawls the site. PageSpeed Insights gives field and lab speed data. The Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator check structured data, and Bing Webmaster Tools adds Bing's view.
Start With the Critical Checks
You do not need to finish this technical SEO audit checklist in one sitting. Fix the 5 Critical checks first (robots.txt blocks, stray noindex tags, HTTPS, server errors and manual actions), then work through the High items on your most valuable pages. Log everything in the template, validate fixes in Search Console and repeat the audit every quarter or after any big site change.
If you would rather hand the work to a team, explore our technical SEO services for small businesses or contact BizTech.
Need a Cleaner SEO Foundation?
BizTech's monthly SEO plans include a technical SEO audit, and the SEO Growth plan also includes fixing what the audit finds. Tell us about your site and we will suggest where to start.
Ruhan Rafiq Bhaleshah
Chief Technology Officer
Ruhan Rafiq Bhaleshah leads the technical vision at BizTech, overseeing full-stack development, AI-powered workflows, and ensuring engineering teams collaborate with design and SEO specialists.