Technical SEO Checklist: 10 Key Steps (+5 Expert Tips!)

Did you know that 96.55% of all web pages get zero search traffic from Google? That’s because most websites fail to meet the technical SEO standards that search engines expect. No matter how great your content is, if your site has slow loading speeds, indexing issues, or broken links, it won’t rank.

This is why having a technical SEO checklist is crucial. By following this checklist, you’ll ensure that your website is crawlable, indexable, and optimized for peak performance—helping you secure higher rankings, better user experiences, and more organic traffic. Use this guide to uncover 10 key steps to perfect your technical SEO, along with 5 expert tips to stay ahead in 2025.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s backend to help search engines crawl, index, and rank it effectively. It focuses on improving site speed, mobile-friendliness, security, structured data, and fixing errors like broken links. Unlike on-page SEO, which deals with content and keywords, or off-page SEO, which focuses on backlinks, technical SEO ensures a website is technically sound.

Differences:

• On-Page SEO → Content, keywords, meta tags
• Off-Page SEO → Backlinks, social signals
• Technical SEO → Website structure, speed, security

Read more: The Difference Between On-Page and Off-Page SEO

Good technical SEO helps websites rank higher. Example: Amazon has fast loading speeds, a mobile-friendly design, and strong security, making it search engine-friendly. On the other hand, a slow, outdated website with broken links and no HTTPS struggles to rank well. Without technical SEO, even high-quality content may not appear in search results, reducing traffic and visibility.

10 Key Technical SEO Checklist

Technical SEO is the backbone of a successful website. No matter how strong your content is, search engines won’t rank your site if they can’t efficiently crawl, index, or interpret it. As one of the crucial types of SEO, technical optimization ensures your website is fast, mobile-friendly, and free of errors. This not only boosts rankings but also enhances user experience and conversions. Here are five essential steps to improve your website’s technical health.

1. Ensure Website Loading Speed

A slow website frustrates users and makes them leave. Google also ranks fast sites higher. A page should load in under 2 seconds for optimal performance.

How to check site speed:

• Use Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to measure performance.
• Test loading time on both desktop and mobile devices.

How to improve loading speed:

• Compress images to reduce file size without losing quality.
• Enable browser caching so returning visitors load pages faster.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to remove unnecessary code.
• Use lazy loading so images load only when they are needed.
• Invest in fast hosting with good server response times.

A fast website keeps visitors engaged and improves rankings.

2. Optimize for Mobile-Friendliness

As of January 2025, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 62.54% of global website traffic.

If your website isn’t optimized for mobile users, you could lose a significant portion of potential visitors. Google also uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it prioritizes the mobile version of your site.

How to check mobile-friendliness:

• Run your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
• Check how your pages appear on different screen sizes.

How to improve mobile experience:

• Use a responsive design that adjusts to different devices.
• Ensure text is readable, and buttons are easy to click.
• Avoid intrusive pop-ups that block content.
• Improve mobile speed by reducing heavy scripts and images.

A mobile-friendly site improves user experience, increases rankings, and reduces bounce rates.

3. Improve Crawlability and Indexability

If search engines can’t crawl and index your site, it won’t appear in search results. Crawlability means Google’s bots can navigate your site, and indexability ensures your pages are stored in Google’s database.

How to check crawlability:

• Use Google Search Console to check for crawl errors.
• Review your robots.txt file to ensure important pages aren’t blocked.

How to improve it:

• Create and submit an XML sitemap to search engines.
• Ensure the robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl key pages.
• Use internal linking to help crawlers discover all your content.
• Avoid orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them).

A well-structured, crawlable site ensures Google can index and rank your pages correctly.

4. Fix Broken Links and Redirects

Broken links create a bad user experience and hurt SEO. They lead to 404 errors, which can signal poor website maintenance. Google may reduce rankings for sites with too many broken links.

How to check for broken links:

• Use tools like Screaming Frog or Broken Link Checker to scan your website.

How to fix them:

• Remove or update links that lead to non-existent pages.
• Use 301 redirects to send users to a new URL when content moves.
• Avoid redirect chains (multiple redirects in a row) as they slow down loading speed.

Fixing broken links keeps your website user-friendly and SEO-friendly.

5. Eliminate Duplicate Content

Duplicate content confuses Google’s algorithm, making it harder to rank pages properly. Google might choose the wrong page to rank, or worse, ignore all duplicates.

How to check for duplicate content:

• Use tools like Siteliner or Copyscape to find repeated content.

How to fix it:

• Use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page is the original.
• Merge similar pages instead of having multiple weak ones.
• Avoid copying content from other websites or even your own pages.

Unique content helps boost rankings, improve SEO, and build credibility.

6. Make URLs Simple and Clear

A website’s URL is important for SEO. Search engines use it to understand a page. A short and clear URL helps both search engines and visitors. Long URLs with numbers and special characters can be confusing. Simple URLs improve rankings and make pages easier to find.

How to check your URLs:

• Look at your site’s URLs. Are they short and easy to read?
• Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to check your URL structure.

How to improve them:

• Keep URLs short. Remove unnecessary words and numbers.
• Use hyphens (-) to separate words, not underscores (_).
• Add keywords but do not overuse them.
• Avoid random numbers and special characters.
• Make sure URLs match the page title and content.

Good URLs help search engines, make navigation easy, and improve rankings.

7. Use HTTPS for Security

Security is important for both SEO and user trust. Google prefers secure websites and ranks them higher. HTTPS keeps data safe. If a site is not secure, users may see a “Not Secure” warning. This can reduce trust and traffic.

How to check if your site is secure:

• Look at the website’s address. A secure site starts with https:// instead of http://.
• Check for a padlock icon in the browser bar.
• Use Google’s Security Issues Report to find security problems.

How to switch to HTTPS:

• Buy an SSL certificate from a trusted company.
• Install the SSL certificate on your web server.
• Change all website links from HTTP to HTTPS.
• Set up 301 redirects to send visitors to the secure version.

Using HTTPS protects data, builds trust, and helps rankings.

8. Improve Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals measure how fast and stable a website is. Google uses them to check user experience. A fast, smooth website ranks higher. Slow and unstable pages lose visitors and traffic.

How to check Core Web Vitals:

• Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test speed.
• Check the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console.

How to improve them:

• Optimize images by compressing them.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to remove extra code.
• Enable lazy loading so images load only when needed.
• Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to make pages load faster.
• Choose a good hosting provider for better server speed.

A fast website improves rankings, lowers bounce rates, and gives users a better experience.

9. Add Schema Markup

Schema markup is special code that helps search engines understand your site better. It also helps show extra details in search results, like star ratings, prices, and event details. This makes your site stand out and can bring more clicks.

How to check if you have schema markup:

• Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to check for schema.
• Look in Google Search Console for errors in structured data.

How to add schema markup:

• Use JSON-LD (a type of structured data) on pages like articles, products, and FAQs.
• Try Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to create schema code.
• Test it with Google’s Rich Results Test before publishing.

Schema markup helps search engines and makes your site more visible in search results.

10. Organize Your Website Structure

A website should be easy to navigate. A clear structure helps search engines find and index pages. If the structure is messy, search engines may miss important pages. A well-organized site also helps visitors find what they need.

How to check your website’s structure:

• Use Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to see how pages are linked.
• Check if visitors can reach key pages within 3-4 clicks from the homepage.

How to improve it:

• Make a clear navigation menu with important pages.
• Use internal linking so pages are easy to find.
• Add breadcrumb navigation to show where a page is in the site.
• Avoid too many subpages. Users should not need too many clicks to reach content.

A simple, well-structured website makes navigation easy, improves SEO, and helps search engines index pages correctly.

Read more: All Advantages and Disadvantages of SEO

5 Expert Tips for Advanced Technical SEO

If you want your website to rank higher on search engines, you need more than just basic SEO. Advanced technical SEO helps search engines crawl, index, and understand your website better. By making the right improvements, you can boost your rankings, improve user experience, and stay ahead of your competitors.

Here are the additional five expert tips to take your technical SEO to the next level.

1. Conduct Regular Technical Audits

A website is like a machine. Over time, it may develop issues that slow it down, cause errors, or prevent search engines from ranking it properly. That’s why regular technical SEO audits are essential. These audits help you find and fix problems before they hurt your rankings.

How to check for technical SEO issues?

• Use Google Search Console to find crawl errors, mobile usability issues, and indexing problems.
• Run your site through tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit to detect broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.
• Check your robots.txt file to make sure it’s not blocking important pages.
• Look at your XML sitemap to ensure search engines can easily find all your pages.

How to fix technical SEO problems?

• Fix broken links and redirect old URLs properly.
• Remove or update duplicate content that confuses search engines.
• Ensure all pages are mobile-friendly and load quickly.
• Optimize your website structure so that all important pages are easy to find.

Regular audits keep your website in good shape and prevent technical problems from affecting your rankings.

2. Monitor and Optimize Crawl Budget

Search engines like Google don’t crawl your website endlessly. They have a crawl budget, which is the number of pages Googlebot is willing to crawl on your site within a certain time. If your website has too many unnecessary pages, Google may waste time crawling them instead of indexing your important content.

Read more: What Is Crawling in SEO?

How to check your crawl budget?

• Use Google Search Console’s Crawl Stats Report to see how often Google crawls your site.
• Analyze your server logs to find which pages Googlebot is spending the most time on.

How to improve crawl budget?

• Block low-value pages in your robots.txt file (such as admin pages or duplicate filters).
• Remove thin or low-quality pages that don’t add value to users.
• Improve your internal linking so that search engines can easily discover important pages.
• Fix redirect chains, as too many redirects waste crawl budget.

Managing your crawl budget helps Google focus on your best content, improving your chances of ranking higher.

3. Leverage Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Website speed is a major ranking factor. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) helps make your site load faster by storing copies of your website on multiple servers worldwide. This way, when a visitor tries to access your site, they get data from the closest server instead of waiting for it to load from a faraway location.

How to check if your website needs a CDN?

• Test your website speed using Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
• Check if visitors from different countries experience slow loading times.
• Use Pingdom to test your website’s response time from different locations.

How to implement a CDN?

• Use a CDN provider like Cloudflare, Akamai, or Amazon CloudFront.
• Configure your CDN to cache static files like images, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Ensure the CDN automatically purges outdated content to serve fresh updates.

A CDN makes your website load faster, reduces server load, and improves user experience.

4. Optimize Images and Media Files

Large images and videos can slow down your website, making users leave before the page loads. Optimizing media files improves load times, which helps rankings and provides a better experience for visitors.

How to check if images and media are slowing your site?

• Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
• Look for large image files that take too long to load.
• Check your server bandwidth usage to see if media files are consuming too much data.

How to optimize images and media?

• Compress images using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim without losing quality.
• Use modern image formats like WebP instead of PNG or JPEG.
• Enable lazy loading so images load only when they are needed.
• Use video hosting platforms (like YouTube or Vimeo) instead of hosting videos directly on your website.

Optimized images and media improve website speed, lower bounce rates, and enhance user experience.

5. Stay Updated with Algorithm Changes

Google constantly updates its search algorithms to improve the quality of search results. If you don’t keep up with these changes, your website might lose rankings without warning. Staying informed helps you adjust your SEO strategy and remain competitive.

How to track algorithm updates?

• Follow Google Search Central Blog for official updates.
• Monitor SEO news websites like Search Engine Journal and Moz Blog.
• Use tools like SEMrush Sensor and MozCast to detect ranking fluctuations.

How to adapt to algorithm updates?

• Focus on high-quality content that provides real value to users.
• Improve website usability, including page speed and mobile-friendliness.
• Follow Google’s E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
• Regularly check Google Search Console for warnings or penalties.

Conclusion 

SEO is always changing, and businesses that stay updated have a better chance of maintaining high rankings.

Technical SEO helps search engines find, understand, and rank your website. A well-optimized site loads fast, works on mobile, and is easy to crawl. Fixing broken links, using HTTPS, and improving site structure also boost SEO.

Regular audits help find and fix problems before they hurt rankings. Optimizing images, using a CDN, and managing crawl budget improve performance. Keeping up with Google’s updates ensures your site stays competitive.

SEO is not a one-time task. It needs regular checks and updates. Use tools like Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights to track progress. Fix issues as soon as they appear.

By following these steps, you can improve rankings, get more traffic, and give users a better experience. Start with small changes and keep improving. A strong technical foundation makes all other SEO efforts more effective. Stay consistent, and you will see results.

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