7 minute read

A practical technical SEO checklist

The technical basics that stop search engines reading your website properly, and how to check each one.

Start with whether pages can be found

Search engines discover pages by following links and reading sitemaps. If a page has no links pointing to it and is missing from your sitemap, it may never be found.

• Publish an XML sitemap and list it in robots.txt
• Link to every important page from at least one other page
• Keep important pages within three clicks of the home page

Make sure pages can be read

A page that returns an error, redirects in a loop or is blocked by robots.txt cannot rank. Check the response every important page gives.

• Fix 4xx and 5xx errors on pages people link to
• Use permanent (301) redirects when a page moves, and point links at the final address
• Only block in robots.txt what you truly want hidden

Tell search engines which version counts

The same content can often be reached at several addresses: with and without www, over http and https, with tracking parameters. A canonical tag names the version that should rank.

• Redirect http to https and pick one host name
• Add a self referencing canonical to each indexable page
• Do not list redirected or noindex pages in your sitemap

Give every page a clear title and description

The title tag is usually the headline searchers see. The meta description is often used as the snippet underneath. Both should be unique and describe the page honestly.

• Keep titles to about 50 to 60 characters
• Write descriptions of about 120 to 160 characters
• Use one H1 heading that matches the purpose of the page

Look after speed and mobile

Most searches happen on phones. Slow pages and layouts that jump around frustrate people and can hold rankings back.

• Add a mobile viewport tag
• Compress images and set their width and height
• Check Core Web Vitals for your busiest pages

Help machines understand the page

Structured data describes your organisation, products, articles or events in a format search engines read reliably. It can earn richer results.

• Add Organization or LocalBusiness data to the home page
• Check JSON-LD for syntax errors after each change
• Consider an llms.txt file to guide AI tools to your key pages

Repeat on a schedule

Websites drift. New pages lose their descriptions, links break and plugins add weight. A scheduled audit catches problems while they are small.