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The Technical SEO Audit Checklist Every Website Needs in 2024

By Marcus Williams · Dec 20, 2023 · 11 min read

Technical SEO is the infrastructure upon which all other SEO efforts depend. Even the best content and backlink strategy will underperform if fundamental technical issues prevent search engines from properly crawling, indexing, and understanding your website.

Crawlability and Indexation

Before a page can rank, Google must be able to find and index it. Common crawlability issues include: robots.txt blocking important pages, orphaned pages with no internal links, redirect chains and loops, and incorrect canonical tags pointing to deprecated URLs.

Use Google Search Console's Coverage report as your first diagnostic tool — it clearly shows which pages are indexed, which are excluded and why, and which have errors requiring attention.

Core Web Vitals Optimization

Google's official page experience metrics directly influence rankings. Target these thresholds:

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Under 2.5 seconds
  • INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Under 200 milliseconds
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Under 0.1

Site Architecture and Internal Linking

A logical site structure helps both users and search engines navigate your content. Key principles: every important page should be reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage, pages should link to related content contextually, and your navigation should reflect your topical hierarchy.

"Fix your technical foundation before investing heavily in content or links — you're building on sand if the infrastructure isn't solid."

Schema Markup Implementation

Structured data helps Google understand your content type and display it in enhanced formats (rich results). Priority schema types for publishers: Article, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage, and HowTo. For e-commerce and marketplace sites, Product and Review schema drive significant visibility improvements.

HTTPS and Security

HTTPS is a confirmed Google ranking signal. Ensure your SSL certificate is valid, there are no mixed content errors, and that all HTTP URLs properly redirect to their HTTPS equivalents.

#Technical SEO#Site Audit#Core Web Vitals#Schema Markup