Technical SEO is the foundation that makes all your content and link building efforts work. Think of it as the plumbing of your website — nobody sees it, but when it's broken, nothing works properly.
Here are 15 things to check today.
Speed and performance
1. Page speed under 3 seconds on mobile. Test at pagespeed.web.dev. If it's slow, compress images, enable caching, and consider better hosting.
2. Core Web Vitals passing. Google measures three specific metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (main content loads), First Input Delay (page responds to interaction), and Cumulative Layout Shift (page doesn't jump around while loading). Check these in Search Console under "Core Web Vitals."
3. Images optimized. Every image should be compressed and served in WebP format where possible. No image on a blog post should be larger than 200KB. Hero images can be up to 500KB.
Crawlability and indexing
4. XML sitemap submitted. Your sitemap tells Google about every page on your site. Submit it through Google Search Console. Most CMS platforms generate sitemaps automatically.
5. Robots.txt configured correctly. This file tells Google which pages to crawl and which to skip. Make sure it's not accidentally blocking important pages. Check at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.
6. No duplicate content issues. If the same content is accessible at multiple URLs (with and without www, with and without trailing slash), you're splitting your ranking signals. Use canonical tags to point to the preferred version.
7. 404 errors fixed. Broken links and missing pages waste Google's crawl budget and frustrate visitors. Check Search Console for 404 errors and either fix the pages or set up 301 redirects.
On-page essentials
8. Unique title tags on every page. Each page needs a unique title tag under 60 characters that includes the target keyword. Duplicate title tags confuse Google about which page to rank.
9. Meta descriptions on every page. While not a direct ranking factor, meta descriptions affect click-through rates from search results. Write compelling descriptions under 155 characters for each page.
10. Header tag hierarchy. Use one H1 per page (your main heading), H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections. This structure helps Google understand your content organization.
11. Image alt text. Every image should have descriptive alt text that includes relevant keywords naturally. This helps with image search and accessibility.
Security and mobile
12. HTTPS enabled. If your site still loads on HTTP, fix this immediately. HTTPS is a confirmed ranking factor and browsers show security warnings for non-HTTPS sites. Most hosting providers offer free SSL certificates.
13. Mobile responsive. Test every page on a real phone. Not a browser window resized to phone width — an actual phone. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so the mobile version of your site is what they evaluate.
Structure and navigation
14. Clean URL structure. URLs should be readable and descriptive: yourdomain.com/services/web-design is better than yourdomain.com/page?id=47&cat=3. Include keywords where natural.
15. Internal linking structure. Every page should be reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage. Important pages should have multiple internal links pointing to them. Orphan pages (no internal links) are harder for Google to discover and rank.
How to audit these
Spend one afternoon going through this list. Use Google Search Console for most checks — it's free and gives you Google's actual perspective on your site.
For a more thorough audit, tools like Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 pages) crawl your site the way Google does and flag technical issues automatically.
Fix the critical items first: HTTPS, mobile responsiveness, site speed, and broken pages. Then work through the rest systematically. Technical SEO isn't glamorous work, but it's what makes your content and marketing efforts actually visible to Google.
