How to Perform a Technical SEO Audit (Step-by-Step)

A technical SEO audit is the foundation of a successful search engine optimisation strategy. By analyzing and optimising your website’s technical elements, you can ensure search engines can crawl, index, and rank your site effectively. Here is a step-by-step guide to performing a comprehensive technical SEO audit that will boost your website’s performance and rankings.

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Why is a Technical SEO Audit Important?

Before diving into the steps, it’s important to understand why a technical SEO audit matters:

  • Improved Crawlability: Ensures search engine bots can access your site.
  • Better Indexing: Helps search engines understand your content.
  • Enhanced User Experience (UX): Resolves performance issues like slow loading times or broken links.
  • Higher Rankings: Eliminates technical barriers that prevent your site from ranking well.

Step-by-Step Guide to Performing a Technical SEO Audit

1. Crawl Your Website

Start by crawling your website to identify issues like broken links, duplicate content, and redirects. Use tools like:

  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider
  • Sitebulb
  • Semrush Site Audit

Key Areas to Check:

  • Missing or duplicate title tags and meta descriptions.
  • 404 error pages.
  • Redirect chains and loops.

2. Check Your Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file tells search engines which pages they can or cannot crawl. Misconfigurations in this file can block important pages from being indexed.

How to Audit:

  • Access your robots.txt file at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt.
  • Ensure it doesn’t block critical pages (e.g., your homepage or category pages).
  • Use the Google Search Console robots.txt tester to validate it.

3. Analyze Your XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a roadmap for search engines. It should include all important pages you want indexed.

What to Check:

  • Ensure your sitemap is clean, with no 404 pages or redirects.
  • Check that it’s submitted to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
  • Confirm it’s automatically updated when new pages are added.

4. Ensure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

With Google’s mobile-first indexing, mobile usability is crucial.

How to Audit:

  • Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
  • Check for responsive design, clickable elements, and proper viewport settings.
  • Ensure mobile loading speed is optimised.

5. Improve Website Speed

Page speed impacts both user experience and search engine rankings.

Tools to Use:

  • Google PageSpeed Insights
  • GTmetrix
  • WebPageTest

Optimisation Tips:

  • Compress images using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim.
  • Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
  • Enable browser caching and use a content delivery network (CDN).

6. Check Your HTTPS Implementation

Secure websites rank higher and build trust with users. Ensure your site is fully HTTPS.

Steps to Audit:

  • Check for mixed content issues (HTTP resources on HTTPS pages).
  • Use an SSL certificate checker like SSL Labs.
  • Ensure all pages redirect to the HTTPS version.

7. Audit Your URL Structure

A clean and consistent URL structure improves crawlability and user experience.

Best Practices:

  • Use short, descriptive URLs with target keywords.
  • Avoid dynamic parameters when possible.
  • Ensure consistency in lowercase usage and hyphenation.

8. Evaluate Your Internal Linking

Internal links help search engines understand site structure and distribute link equity.

What to Check:

  • Ensure all key pages are linked from other pages.
  • Fix orphaned pages (pages with no internal links).
  • Use descriptive anchor text for internal links.

9. Fix Duplicate Content Issues

Duplicate content confuses search engines and can harm rankings.

How to Identify:

  • Use tools like Siteliner or Copyscape.
  • Check for duplicate title tags, meta descriptions, and content blocks.

How to Fix:

  • Use canonical tags to consolidate duplicate pages.
  • Redirect duplicate URLs to the preferred version.

10. Check for Broken Links

Broken links frustrate users and waste crawl budget.

How to Fix:

  • Identify broken links using Screaming Frog or Google Search Console.
  • Update or remove broken links.

11. Ensure Proper Use of Structured Data

Structured data helps search engines understand your content and improves visibility in rich results.

Steps to Audit:

  • Use Google’s Rich Results Test to check your structured data.
  • Add schema markup for reviews, products, FAQs, and more.
  • Fix errors flagged in Search Console.

12. Monitor Your Site’s Indexing Status

Check how many pages are indexed to ensure no critical pages are excluded.

Tools to Use:

  • Google Search Console > Coverage Report.
  • Bing Webmaster Tools > Index Explorer.

Actions to Take:

  • Fix “excluded” pages if they should be indexed.
  • Remove low-quality or thin content from the index.

Final Checks After Your Audit

  • Create an Audit Report: Document all issues and their fixes.
  • Set Up Regular Audits: Perform a technical SEO audit every 3-6 months to keep your site optimised.
  • Track Performance: Monitor key metrics like organic traffic, bounce rate, and site speed to evaluate improvements.

Conclusion

A technical SEO audit is a vital step in optimising your website for search engines and users. By following this step-by-step guide, you can identify and fix issues that hinder your site’s performance. Regular audits will keep your website running smoothly and help you achieve long-term SEO success.

Need assistance with your technical SEO audit? Contact London SEO Services for expert guidance and tailored solutions!