SEO Technical Audit Checklist

Technical SEO audit is a comprehensive check of your website with the aim of optimizing it to meet the technical requirements of search engines, particularly Google. The goal of such an audit is to identify and eliminate all technical errors that may negatively affect site indexing, its visibility in search results, and consequently, organic traffic.

Who can benefit from this SEO checklist:

1. For beginner SEO specialists.
2. For small businesses that have decided to handle SEO themselves.
3. For digital marketing agencies that have decided to open a new direction of SEO services.

SEO Checklist:

General:

• Site added to Google Search Console (GSC) and access provided to the specialist.
• Site added to Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) and access provided to the specialist.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) installed and access provided to the specialist.
• GA4 installed on all pages.
• Google Tag Manager (GTM) installed and access provided to the specialist.
• GTM installed on all site pages.
• robots.txt file exists and the site is open for indexing.
• All technical pages are blocked from indexing in the robots.txt file.
• sitemap.xml file exists, is generated correctly, and updated regularly.
• sitemap.xml file added to GSC and BWT.
• All order forms checked for functionality.
• Shopping cart and purchase process on the site checked for functionality.

Technical:

• WWW and non-WWW mirrors are correctly canonicalized.
• HTTPS protocol is configured.
• No duplicate .php / .html pages.
• The site has no mirrors on other domains.
• Test environments (test domains, subdomains, pages), if any, are blocked from indexing.
• No technical duplicates of the homepage.
• No technical duplicates with and without trailing slashes.
• No different URL variations for pagination pages.
• No duplicate pages detected.
• CSS and JS files are open for indexing (except for system files, passwords, server logs, etc.).
• Page URLs are configured according to SEO-friendly URL standards.
• All links are unified in letter case (Latin + lowercase).
• No pages with 3xx status codes, or their number is minimized.
• No cyclical redirects.
• 404 error page is generated correctly and returns a 404 status code.
• No pages with 4xx and 5xx status codes.
• No critical errors in the HTML code according to W3C standards.
• No internal linking issues detected.
• No intrusive pop-up and push-up windows.
• “Breadcrumbs” are configured for all nested categories and subcategories of the site / product cards.
• Site checked for cross-browser compatibility: site pages display similarly across different browsers, JavaScript modules function correctly.
• AMP pages in Google (configured for static / product cards or blog pages).
• HTML sitemap is generated correctly. A link to it is placed in the site footer on all pages.
• Presence of Last-Modified (304 response) – FOR FINALIZED PAGES (blog post + product card + service card).
• Site is adapted and optimized for mobile devices.

Site Loading Speed:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) metrics are in the “green zone”.
• FID (First Input Delay) metrics are in the “green zone”.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) metrics are in the “green zone”.

Content Section:

• All texts on the site are unique – verified by a service.
• No keyword stuffing in texts. Keyword density not exceeding 5%.
• Content has a clear structure: texts are structured, H2, H3 tags are used correctly, bold STRONG, italic EM, ordered OL and unordered UL lists, BLOCKQUOTE quotes are used.
• Excessive formatting is not used to highlight all keywords.
• Template-based content generation is not used in texts.
• Excessive formatting is not used to highlight all keywords.
• If logical, images, galleries, videos, diagrams, formulas, tables, infographics are used in texts.

Meta Tags:

• Title tag is present on all pages.
• No duplication of the Title tag.
• Title tag has a length of 70 to 80 characters.
• Description tag is present on all pages.
• Description tag has a length of 130 to 220 characters.
• No duplication of the Description tag.
• Title and Description tags do not duplicate each other.
• H1 tag is present on all pages.
• Only one H1 tag is specified on pages.
• No duplication of the H1 tag.
• H2 tag is present on all pages.
• No duplication of the H2 tag.
• Title tags do not duplicate H1 and H2.
• The structure of H tags (H1 – H6) is correct on all pages; tags are not used for styling non-main “body” of the article.
• Noindex, nofollow meta tags are configured correctly (if needed).
• Alternate, hreflang meta tags for multilingual sites.
• Alternate, media meta tags to specify the mobile version of the same page.
• Alternate, type meta tags to specify the page version in a different format.

Images and Documents:

• Image and downloadable document files are open for indexing.
• Image format is .webp or .png (compressed).
• No Flash detected.
• No pages without content.
• No broken links to documents.
• No broken images.
• Image sizes on the site are optimized, compression is used (up to 100 KB). https://compressjpeg.com/ or similar.
• Alt/title tags are correctly configured for images.

E-A-T Factors:

• The site should have an “About Us” page.
• The site should have a “Contacts” page.
• The site should have a “Privacy Policy” page.
• The site should have the ability to configure cookie management in accordance with EU legislation.
• It is recommended that the site has a link to the company’s Blog.
• A product page (product page in an online store) should have the following characteristics:
  • price;
  • product description;
  • specifications;
  • reviews;
  • delivery information;
  • payment information;
  • product instructions;
  • return conditions;
  • public offer;
  • etc.

Other:

• There is a quick scroll-to-top feature.
• Prices are indicated on product and service pages.
• Company chat is configured.
• Social media buttons are added.
• Social media “Share” widgets are added.
• Add an online consultant and/or callback system.

Well, if you need the services of a digital agency that will analyze your site and offer high-quality comprehensive SEO promotion, you can contact Spilno Agency digital marketing agency, which shared this checklist and its experience.