How to Run a Technical SEO Audit

A technical audit is a systematic review of your site's technical health. It identifies issues blocking crawling, indexation, and ranking. A thorough audit takes 2-4 hours. Start with critical issues, then fix high-priority items over time.

What Is a Technical Audit?

A technical audit evaluates how well your site is optimised for search engines from an infrastructure perspective. It's not about content or links — it's about the plumbing: can search engines crawl and index your pages? Are pages fast? Is the structure sound?

A good audit results in a prioritised list of fixes. Critical issues (blocking indexation) go first. High-priority issues (affecting rankings) come next. Medium and low-priority improvements are done as time allows.

The Priority Framework

Critical Issues: Block Indexation or Visibility

• Entire site blocked in robots.txt
• HTTPS certificate expired or invalid
• Major sections inaccessible or 404ing
• Important pages accidentally noindexed

High-Priority Issues: Hurt Rankings

• Poor Core Web Vitals (LCP > 4s, INP > 500ms, CLS > 0.25)
• Large crawl-to-index gap (many more crawled than indexed)
• Massive duplicate content (hundreds of parameter variations not consolidated)
• Slow TTFB or slow mobile experience
• Significant crawl budget waste (crawling low-value pages)

Medium-Priority Issues: Incremental Improvements

• No XML sitemap
• Poor internal linking structure
• Missing or invalid structured data
• Redirect chains (not loops, but inefficient)
• Some broken internal links

Low-Priority Issues: Optimisations

• Minor CWV issues (LCP 2.5-3s, INP 200-300ms)
• Missing meta descriptions (doesn't affect ranking, only CTR)
• Suboptimal hreflang configuration (if not using international versions)

Step-by-Step Audit Process

Step 1: Verify Access and Basics (15 min)

• Confirm your site is live and accessible. Open it in a browser.
• Check HTTPS. Is there a green lock? No "not secure" warning?
• Verify robots.txt isn't blocking the site: example.com/robots.txt. Check for Disallow: /.

Step 2: Google Search Console Review (20 min)

• Coverage report: How many pages indexed vs submitted? Large gap = indexation problem.
• Index Coverage errors: Any pages blocked, with errors, or excluded? Click to investigate.
• Core Web Vitals: Are metrics in good, needs improvement, or poor range?
• Mobile Usability: Any warnings?
• Security & Manual Actions: Any penalties or security issues?

Step 3: Crawl Audit with Screaming Frog (30 min)

• Download Screaming Frog (free or paid version). Start a crawl of your site.
• Review the Crawl Overview: page count, response codes, broken links.
• Check for duplicate content: multiple URLs with identical titles/descriptions.
• Look for redirect chains: any URLs redirecting multiple times?
• Check for noindex pages: are important pages noindexed?
• Review internal link distribution: are important pages well-linked?

Step 4: Speed and Core Web Vitals (15 min)

• Run PageSpeed Insights on 5-10 pages (homepage, top content pages, category pages).
• Note field data from CrUX (real user data) vs lab data.
• Identify which metrics are failing (LCP, INP, CLS).
• Document quick wins (image optimisation, lazy-loading, code-splitting).

Step 5: Mobile Testing (10 min)

• Open your site on an actual mobile phone or use Chrome DevTools device emulation.
• Is it responsive? Are all features accessible on mobile?
• Is content missing or hidden compared to desktop?

Step 6: Structured Data Check (10 min)

• Run Google's Rich Results Test on key pages (homepage, article pages, product pages).
• Are there structured data errors? If so, document what needs fixing.

Step 7: Sitemap and robots.txt Review (5 min)

• Check example.com/sitemap.xml. Is it present? Valid?
• Check robots.txt. Are critical pages disallowed? Are CSS/JS blocked?
• Is the sitemap submitted in Google Search Console?

Step 8: Document Findings and Prioritise (30 min)

Create a spreadsheet or document listing all issues found, categorised by priority. Include:

• Issue category (crawlability, speed, indexation, etc.)
• Specific problem (e.g., "LCP 3.2s on homepage")
• Impact (critical, high, medium, low)
• Recommended fix
• Effort (1-10 hours)

Audit Checklist: What to Check

Tools You'll Need

• Google Search Console (free): Essential. Crawl stats, indexation, Core Web Vitals, errors.
• Screaming Frog (free or $249/yr): Crawls your site and reports on links, duplicates, redirects, errors.
• PageSpeed Insights (free): Measures Core Web Vitals and provides optimisation suggestions.
• Google Rich Results Test (free): Validates structured data.
• SSL Labs (free): Checks HTTPS/SSL certificate validity.
• Lighthouse (free, built into Chrome DevTools): Detailed performance analysis (remember, this is lab data).

Audit Frequency

Small sites (under 10,000 pages): Quarterly audits are sufficient.

Medium sites (10,000-100,000 pages): Monthly audits recommended.

Large sites (over 100,000 pages): Monthly audits, with continuous log monitoring.

After major changes: Always audit after launching new site versions, migrating platforms, or significant restructuring.

Expected Outcomes from an Audit

A well-run audit should produce:

• 1-3 critical issues requiring immediate attention
• 3-8 high-priority issues to address in the next 1-2 quarters
• 5-10 medium-priority improvements to implement over time
• A roadmap for the next 3-6 months of technical work

If you find zero issues, you either have a very mature site or your audit wasn't thorough. Most sites have at least a few fixable issues.

Common Audit Findings

• Poor Core Web Vitals (80% of sites)
• Unoptimised images (90% of sites)
• Missing or poor internal linking (60% of sites)
• Duplicate content not consolidated (40% of sites)
• Missing XML sitemap (30% of sites)
• No structured data (50% of sites)
• Redirect chains (50% of sites)

If you identify and fix just the top 1-2 issues, you're already ahead of most sites.