Technical SEO checklist: what to fix before you spend on content

Before you pay for blog posts or backlinks, make sure Google can actually find, read and load your website. Technical problems quietly hold back even the best content. This checklist covers the basics you can check yourself, most of them in Google Search Console, which is free.

1. Can Google index your pages?

• Search Google for site:yourdomain.com. Are your main pages listed?
• In Search Console, open Pages under Indexing. Look at “Why pages aren’t indexed”.
• Check that no important page has a noindex tag. This often happens when a site is launched with the “discourage search engines” box still ticked in WordPress.
• Check your robots.txt file (yourdomain.com/robots.txt) does not block important folders.

2. Is there a sitemap?

A sitemap lists the pages you want Google to find. SEO plugins like Rank Math or Yoast create one automatically. Submit it in Search Console under Sitemaps and check it shows “Success”.

3. Does the site load fast on mobile?

Most visitors arrive on a phone. Test your key pages with PageSpeed Insights and look at the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. Common fixes:

• Compress and resize large images, and serve them in modern formats
• Remove plugins and scripts you no longer use
• Use caching and a good hosting plan
• Avoid heavy sliders and auto-playing videos at the top of the page

4. Is it easy to use on a phone?

Text should be readable without zooming, buttons easy to tap, and nothing should spill off the side of the screen. Your phone number and WhatsApp button should be one tap away.

5. HTTPS everywhere

Every page should load on https:// with the padlock. Old http links should redirect to https, and there should be one version of your domain (with or without www), with the other redirecting to it.

6. Broken links and redirects

• Find pages that return “404 not found” in Search Console and fix the links to them.
• When you change a page address, add a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one, so visitors and Google land in the right place.
• Avoid chains of redirects (A to B to C).

7. Duplicate and thin pages

Several pages with nearly the same content compete with each other. Merge them, or point the duplicates to the main version with a canonical tag. Remove or improve pages with almost no content, such as empty tag archives.

8. Titles, headings and structure

Each page should have one clear H1 heading, a unique title tag and a meta description. Use subheadings that describe the content. Keep important pages within two or three clicks of the home page.

9. Structured data

Structured data (schema) tells Google what a page is about: your business details, services, FAQs, articles. It can make your listing richer in search results. Most SEO plugins add the basics; test pages with Google’s Rich Results Test.

10. Search Console is set up and checked

If you do only one thing from this list, set up Google Search Console and look at it once a month. It tells you about indexing problems, speed issues and the searches that bring visitors.

Want it done for you?

Our Technical SEO audit and fixes costs $149 one-time: a full audit, speed and Core Web Vitals fixes, indexing, sitemap and robots.txt, redirects and broken links, schema markup, Search Console set-up and a written report of everything done. Once the basics are fixed, a monthly Full SEO plan builds on them.