Technical SEO Audit Checklist: Step-by-Step Guide for Success
Technical SEO is essential for websites. Search engines can easily find, crawl, index, or display websites or webpages with strong technical SEO in SERPs. It is more likely to give entrepreneurs sufficient business opportunities every day. But sites with poor technical SEO run into many problems, such as delays in indexing, 404 pages, lower ranking in search engines, reduced traffic, and lead generation opportunities, etc.
This is where technical SEO comes into the picture. A competent digital marketing company or professional can quickly check all technical SEO aspects of a website and make the necessary improvements. It helps the site to be quickly indexed by search engines, allowing its owners to enjoy more traffic, exposure to the brand on the web, and revenues. So, let’s talk about the technical SEO audit checklist that you must follow to ensure the profitability of websites in the short and long term. We will also discuss how NMS can offer a helping hand in this regard.
What is A Technical SEO Checklist?
In simple words, a technical SEO checklist is a to-do list. Digital marketing companies or professionals inspect the various technical issues a website faces and ensure everything is ok. Once the inspection is done, the site starts working smoothly. Search engines can easily find and rank it, enabling business people to get more visitors and lead generation opportunities.
How To Know My Website Needs A Technical SEO Audit?
Many factors indicate your website needs a technical SEO audit-
- The overall ranking of your website has gone down.
- You are getting less organic traffic and business opportunities.
- Your website or its pages have crawling or indexing issues.
- Your website has too many broken links.
- Your website loading speed is slow.
- Visitors are not able to access your website through their favorite internet browser.
- Your website’s ranking declined significantly after a Google algorithm update, etc.
Technical SEO Audit Checklist: Everything You Should Check On A Website
Broken Links
Broken links, technically known as 404 pages, are dead pages that point users nowhere. Both search engines and visitors dislike them. If your website has too many broken links, likely, search engines will not crawl and index it. So, examine all pages of your website and remove 404 pages. As per your requirement, either redirect them to a new URL or update the page with new content. It will make your site more useful. Its chances of being crawled by search engines are increased by leaps and bounds.
Examine Your Sitemap
Remember, a high-quality website gives clean guidance to search engines about pages that need to be crawled and indexed. So, apart from an HTML sitemap (which is designed for users), add a well-structured XML sitemap. It will help search engines to discover your website or its pages faster and index them more frequently.
Examine Your Website’s Browser Compatibility
People use different Internet browsers to browse websites, such as Google Chrome (65%-70%), Apple Safari (18%), Microsoft Edge (4.97%), Mozilla Firefox (2.37%), Opera (1.85%), etc. Your website should be accessible through all internet browsers if you want to get more traffic and business opportunities. So, check your site’s cross-browser compatibility and take the required action. It will help individuals to quickly browse your website from different internet browsers and show interest in available offers.
Check the Website’s Loading Speed
It is an important factor that determines whether the audience will browse your site or not. Ideally, a website should load on all Internet-enabled devices in just a few seconds. It allows them to quickly navigate different pages and take the required actions. On the other hand, if it takes more time to load, people will go away. And, they will not come back again. Search engines avoid slow-loading websites. So, you should fix all issues ( too many plugins, a shared server, etc) that make your website slow. Ultimately, you will see a sharp increase in its traffic and user interaction.
Crawlability
It is an important factor that determines the success of your search engine optimization efforts and the volume of business opportunities you are likely to get. If there is a crawlability issue, search engines can’t index it.
So, it will not appear in search results, thus impacting its organic traffic and your revenues. Robots.txt blocking, slow loading speeds, IP or location changes, firewall or bot protection, site structure problems, and low-quality content are some reasons that lead to this problem. It’s always better to work with a competent digital marketing company to find and eliminate all issues leading to this problem. Once this problem is solved, your website or its pages are quickly crawled and indexed by search engines.
Mobile friendliness
Nearly 69.13% of all Internet users use Internet-enabled mobile devices to browse websites and perform other activities online. So, your website must have a responsive design. If not, you will lose a lot of business opportunities. So, examine its mobile friendliness and take the required action. Soon, you will see a sharp spike in website traffic from mobile devices.
Examine Content Structure
Your website’s content should be structured properly. It helps search engines to find, index, and display them in SERPs as required. Here are a few things that you need to take care of-
- Make sure your website’s content is in a proper structure, such as Home > Category > Subcategory > Content. It will help both individuals and search engines to understand the content layout.
- Optimize web-page URLs and make them short and simple.
- Use heading structures (H1-H6) appropriately.
- Perform internal linking properly. It helps in SEO and user navigation.
- Use ALT tags for images. It enables search engines to understand images and rank them accordingly.
- Avoid AI slop (low-quality content) on your website. Delete all outdated or irrelevant content and update the website or its pages with meaningful content written by human writers. It will help your site stand out and attract the target audience.
Update Structured data
Always keep in mind that structured data is quite helpful for both old and new websites. It allows search engines to understand the site’s content and rank it accordingly. So, update it as soon as possible. It will increase the website’s traffic, impressions, clicks, user retention rate, etc.
NMS For SEO Technical Audit Checklist
Remember, to perform an all-inclusive technical SEO checklist, you need to have cross-disciplinary knowledge (SEO, web development, content marketing, testing, etc). Moreover, the volume of checks makes this task extremely complex. So, it’s challenging for a single website owner to take care of all these aspects and revamp the site.
But don’t worry; NMS is always happy to help. We have several years of experience in website development, management, and technical SEO audits. Just let us know the issues with your website and leave everything on our shoulders. Our experts will examine your website completely in a proper sequence and make it SEO-ready. With our help, your website will have a better presence on the World Wide Web.
Conclusion
Technical SEO is important to ensure improved search ranking of websites, enhance user experience, gain a competitive advantage, and increase conversions. If you see a sharp decline in your site’s performance, turn to NMS for an all-inclusive SEO technical audit. We will examine your website, fix technical SEO issues, and make it ready for both search engines and humans.
