You can write the best article on the internet, but if Google cannot crawl it, render it, and trust the site it lives on, it will not rank. Technical SEO is the plumbing — invisible when it works, catastrophic when it doesn't. It is also the part most businesses ignore because it is less glamorous than content and keywords.
This is the complete checklist we work through when auditing a site. Go through it section by section; each fixed item removes a reason Google might be holding your rankings back.
1. Crawling: can Google reach your pages?
- robots.txt is correct. Make sure you are not accidentally blocking important pages or your CSS/JS. One stray
Disallow: /can hide your entire site. - An XML sitemap exists and is submitted. It should list your real, indexable URLs and be referenced in robots.txt and submitted in Google Search Console.
- No crawl traps. Infinite calendars, faceted-filter URL explosions, and session IDs in URLs waste your crawl budget.
- Internal linking is healthy. Every important page should be reachable within a few clicks from the homepage. Orphan pages (linked from nowhere) rarely rank.
2. Indexing: are your pages actually in Google?
- Check coverage in Search Console. The Pages report tells you what is indexed and, crucially, why things are excluded.
- Canonical tags are correct. Every page should declare its preferred URL with a self-referencing canonical, so duplicate or parameter versions consolidate to one.
- noindex is used deliberately. Private pages (admin, account, thank-you pages) should be
noindex; public pages must not be — a misplaced noindex is a silent ranking killer. - No duplicate content. The same content on multiple URLs (http vs https, www vs non-www, trailing slashes) splits your authority. Pick one version and 301-redirect the rest.
3. Site speed and Core Web Vitals
Speed is not a nice-to-have. It is a confirmed ranking factor and the single biggest driver of bounce rate on mobile.
Google measures real user experience through Core Web Vitals:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — how fast the main content loads. Aim under 2.5s.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — how responsive the page feels. Aim under 200ms.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — how much the layout jumps around. Aim under 0.1.
We cover how to actually fix these in our Core Web Vitals guide. Quick wins: compress and lazy-load images, serve modern formats (WebP/AVIF), minimise render-blocking scripts, and set explicit dimensions on images to stop layout shift.
4. Mobile-friendliness
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. Non-negotiables:
- Responsive design that works on small screens — no horizontal scrolling.
- Tap targets large enough to use with a thumb.
- Readable font sizes without zooming.
- The same content and structured data on mobile as desktop.
5. Security and HTTPS
- HTTPS everywhere. A valid SSL certificate is a baseline ranking signal and a trust signal for users.
- No mixed content. An HTTPS page loading HTTP resources triggers browser warnings.
- Force HTTPS with a redirect so the insecure version never serves.
6. Structured data (schema markup)
Structured data tells Google exactly what your content is, unlocking rich results — star ratings, FAQs, breadcrumbs, article cards — that boost click-through:
- Add Organization schema sitewide so Google understands your brand.
- Use Article schema on blog posts, Product on products, LocalBusiness for local SEO, FAQPage where relevant.
- Add BreadcrumbList so your SERP listing shows a clean breadcrumb trail.
- Validate everything with Google's Rich Results Test — broken schema can do more harm than none.
7. URL structure and metadata
- Clean, descriptive URLs.
/services/web-developmentbeats/page?id=42. - Unique title tags on every page, with the primary keyword near the front.
- Compelling meta descriptions. They do not directly rank you, but they drive clicks — and click-through matters.
- One H1 per page that clearly states the topic, with a logical H2/H3 hierarchy beneath it.
8. Fix what's broken
- Hunt down 404s and either restore the page or 301-redirect it somewhere relevant.
- Fix redirect chains. A → B → C wastes crawl budget and slows users; point A straight to C.
- Repair broken internal and outbound links.
The honest truth about technical SEO
Most sites have a handful of these issues quietly suppressing their rankings — a stray noindex, a slow LCP, missing canonicals, broken schema. The problem is that none of them are visible just by looking at your site. You have to audit for them.
That is exactly why we built siteIQ — it runs 65+ technical checks against your site automatically, flags every issue on this checklist, and tells you how to fix each one in plain language. Instead of manually working through this list, you get a prioritised report in minutes. Run a free audit and see where your site stands.