Picture a dental practice in Montclair that launched a new website last spring. The pages look sharp and the service copy is solid. Yet months later, calls from search still haven’t picked up. Then someone finally runs a technical SEO audit and finds the culprit. A setting left over from the developer’s test site still tells Google not to index the pages. Problems like that stay invisible in your browser, but they can quietly undo everything you’ve invested in the site.
You don’t need a developer to find most of these issues. This checklist covers the five areas worth checking first: crawling, indexing, speed, mobile and structured data. You can work through it in an afternoon with free tools. New to crawling and indexing? Our plain-English explanation of how SEO works covers the basics.
What You Need Before Your Technical SEO Audit
Start with Google Search Console. It’s free and shows how Google crawls and indexes your site. If nobody has verified your domain yet, do that first, because new reports can take a few days to fill in. Next, bookmark PageSpeed Insights, which runs Google’s free Lighthouse test on any page you enter.
You’ll also want your own phone, a spreadsheet to log what you find, and a desktop crawler. Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider, for example, crawls up to 500 URLs free, which covers most small business sites. Keep the log simple: the page, the problem, how serious it is, and who owns the fix.
Step 1: Make Sure Google Can Crawl Your Site
Crawling is how Google discovers your pages, so any barrier here blocks everything that follows. First, type your domain followed by /robots.txt into a browser. If you see “Disallow: /” under “User-agent: *”, you’re asking search engines to stay out of the entire site. That line often slips through when a new site moves from a staging server to the live domain.
Then find your XML sitemap, often at /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml or, on WordPress, /wp-sitemap.xml. It should list only live pages you actually want found. Submit it in the Sitemaps report in Search Console if nobody has. Finally, run your crawler and look for these common problems:
- Broken internal links that lead to 404 error pages
- Redirect chains, where an old URL hops through two or three others before it lands
- Important pages that no menu or other page links to
- Menus or buttons that rely on scripts instead of standard HTML links, which Google may not follow
Step 2: Check What Google Has Indexed
A page Google has crawled still may not appear in results. So open the Page indexing report in Search Console and read the reasons under “Why pages aren’t indexed.” Some entries are harmless, such as redirects or pages you excluded on purpose. Others need attention right away, especially “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” on a service page you want customers to find. On WordPress, also check Settings, then Reading, and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked.
For your five or six most valuable pages, paste each URL into the URL Inspection tool at the top of Search Console. It tells you whether Google has indexed the page, which version it chose as canonical, and when it last crawled it. If Google picked a different URL than the one you expect, you probably have a duplicate problem.
Duplicate URLs That Split Your Signals
Many small business sites load the same page at several addresses: with and without “www,” over http and https, or with and without a trailing slash. To test yours, type each variation into your browser. Every version should redirect permanently (a 301) to one preferred address. Each page should also carry a canonical tag pointing to that address, and most WordPress SEO plugins add one automatically.
Step 3: Test Page Speed and Core Web Vitals
Next, run your homepage and your top service page through PageSpeed Insights, and read the mobile results first. The top section shows field data from real Chrome users when enough exists, with a Passed or Failed verdict on Core Web Vitals. Below that, the Lighthouse lab test lists specific problems and estimated savings.
Core Web Vitals measure three things: loading speed, responsiveness and layout stability. Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay as the responsiveness metric in 2024. On small business WordPress sites, the usual culprits are oversized photos, heavy page builders, piles of plugins and bargain hosting. Our guide to Core Web Vitals and website speed explains each metric and its fixes. For now, just flag the slow pages.
Step 4: Audit the Mobile Version, Not the Desktop
Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of your site, so that’s the version to judge. Google also retired its standalone mobile-friendly test in late 2023, which makes your own phone the most honest tool. Open your key pages on it, ideally over cellular data rather than office Wi-Fi.
As you scroll, ask a few blunt questions. Can you read the text without zooming? Are buttons far enough apart to tap without hitting the wrong one? Does a pop-up cover the page the moment it loads? And does your phone number start a call when you tap it?
Then compare mobile and desktop side by side. Google advises keeping the same content on both, so if reviews or service details vanish on mobile, Google may never count them.
Step 5: Check Your Structured Data
Structured data is code that labels facts on your pages, such as your business name, address, phone number and hours, so search engines don’t have to guess. Google recommends the JSON-LD format, and for a local company the core type is LocalBusiness or a subtype like Dentist or Plumber. To see what you already have, run a key page through Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator.
After that, check the markup against a few rules. Your name, address and phone number should match your Google Business Profile exactly. Google’s structured data guidelines also say not to mark up content that visitors can’t see on the page. And skip review markup for your own business, because Google only shows LocalBusiness review stars on sites that review other businesses. Structured data can make a page eligible for richer results, but don’t expect it to lift rankings by itself.
Step 6: Turn Your SEO Audit Findings Into a Fix List
A technical SEO audit only pays off when the fixes actually happen. So sort every issue in your spreadsheet into three tiers. First come problems that stop Google from seeing pages at all, such as noindex tags, robots.txt blocks and broken redirects. Next come issues that lose visitors on your money pages, like slow mobile loads or buttons nobody can tap. Last comes polish, such as missing schema fields or broken links on old blog posts.
After each fix, click “Validate fix” in the Page indexing report, or request indexing through URL Inspection. Then set a reminder to repeat the checklist every quarter, and always after a redesign, a hosting move or a major plugin update. Some jobs, like mapping redirects for a site migration or fixing server-level speed problems, are worth handing to a professional. Our SEO services cover that deeper work alongside keywords, content and local search.
Technical SEO Audit Questions Owners Ask
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
For a small business site with 20 to 50 pages, the checks above usually take an afternoon. Fixes vary far more. Removing a stray noindex tag takes minutes, while a slow theme might mean a rebuild. Google also needs time to recrawl, so give changes a few weeks before you judge the results.
Will fixing technical problems raise my rankings?
Sometimes, when the fix removes a real blocker like a stray noindex tag. Otherwise, technical fixes clear the way, but Google still ranks the page that best answers the search. Your content, reviews and links all play a part, which is why no tool or consultant can promise a position. If you’re still deciding whether SEO deserves room in your budget, our five reasons New Jersey small businesses need SEO lay out the business case.
Do I need paid software for an SEO audit?
No. Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, a free crawler and your phone cover everything in this checklist. Paid platforms save time on bigger sites. However, treat their health scores as the vendor’s own formula. As Google’s guidance on third-party SEO tools notes, they can’t see its internal ranking data.
Where to Go From Here
Fix the blockers first, then turn to content and links. Our complete guide to ranking higher on Google shows what to tackle next. If you’d rather have a partner run the audit with you, Samaroo Solutions is based in northern New Jersey and works with businesses across the state, from Bergen County to Cape May. Tell us about your website, and we’ll walk you through what we find in plain English.
