How to Conduct a Technical SEO Site Audit

Key Takeaways

• A technical SEO audit ensures your website is healthy, crawlable, and optimized for search engines.
• Key audit steps include site crawling, indexability, site speed, mobile usability, and structured data.
• Businesses often benefit from hiring a technical SEO agency for expert insights and in-depth analysis.
• Regular audits help prevent ranking drops and ensure long-term SEO success.

Why Technical SEO Audits Are Critical for Website Success

Having excellent content and keywords is insufficient in the current digital environment. Your website must also be technically sound to perform well in search engine rankings. If Google can’t crawl, index, or understand your site efficiently, your traffic and visibility will suffer—regardless of how good your blog posts or landing pages are.

That’s where a technical SEO site audit comes in. It helps you identify hidden issues that may be holding your site back and provides a roadmap for fixing them. Whether you're a business owner, developer, or marketer, understanding how to conduct a technical SEO audit is crucial for online success.

What Is a Technical SEO Audit?

A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive evaluation of your website’s infrastructure. Unlike content audits that focus on keywords and readability, a technical SEO audit assesses the backend elements that affect your site's ability to rank. This includes aspects like:

• Site speed
• Indexing status
• Mobile-friendliness
• Crawl errors
• Security protocols
• Structured data

By conducting regular audits or hiring a technical SEO audit service, you can ensure your website is functioning optimally and meeting search engine requirements.

Step-by-Step Guide to Performing a Technical SEO Audit

Step 1: Start with a Crawl of Your Website

The first step in a technical SEO audit is to simulate how search engines crawl your site. Tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, and Ahrefs Site Audit are excellent for this.

The crawl will reveal critical data such as:

• Broken links
• Duplicate content
• Missing or duplicated metadata
• Redirect chains
• Thin content pages

This data provides a baseline for deeper analysis. If you work with a technical SEO agency, this step is typically automated and followed by expert interpretation of the results.

Step 2: Check Indexability and Crawlability

Crawlability refers to whether search engine bots can access your pages. Indexability checks whether those pages can be added to Google's index.

Here’s what to review:

• Robots.txt file – Ensure it’s not blocking important pages.
• Meta robots tags – Check for noindex tags applied unintentionally.
• Canonical tags – Confirm they correctly point to the primary version of the page.
• XML sitemap – Ensure it’s up-to-date and submitted to Google Search Console.

Many technical SEO services start with this analysis because even a single mistake here can prevent an entire section of your site from appearing in search results.

Step 3: Analyze Site Speed and Core Web Vitals

Google has made it clear that page speed and Core Web Vitals are key ranking signals. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or GTmetrix to assess:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP)
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• Time to Interactive (TTI)

Optimizations may include:

• Compressing images
• Minifying CSS and JavaScript
• Leveraging browser caching
• Implementing lazy loading

A reputable technical SEO agency will often include performance optimization in their service packages.

Step 4: Evaluate Mobile-Friendliness

With mobile-first indexing, your mobile site becomes the primary version used for ranking and indexing. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check for:

• Viewport issues
• Unreadable text
• Clickable elements too close together
• Incompatible plugins

Your site should be fully responsive, with fast loading speeds and simplified navigation for mobile users. Poor mobile usability can seriously impact both SEO and user experience.

Step 5: Audit Your Site’s URL Structure and Internal Linking

A clean and logical URL structure helps both users and search engines understand your site hierarchy. Look for:

• Consistent use of hyphens (not underscores)
• Short, descriptive URLs
• No excessive dynamic parameters

Also, check internal linking. Ensure:

• Important pages are linked within the content
• There are no orphan pages
• Anchor text is descriptive

Proper linking distributes authority and helps crawlers navigate your site efficiently—a key part of any professional technical SEO audit service.

Step 6: Fix Broken Links and Redirect Issues

Broken internal or external links not only harm SEO but also damage user trust. Use your site crawl data to locate:

• 404 errors
• Redirect chains (301 > 302 > final URL)
• Outdated outbound links

Fix these by:

• Updating URLs
• Removing unnecessary redirects
• Using 301 redirects for moved content

Businesses often outsource this step to a technical SEO agency due to the manual work involved in large websites.

Step 7: Review On-Site Technical Elements (Schemas, Canonicals, Sitemaps)

Structured data (Schema.org) helps search engines better understand your content. It also enhances search results with rich snippets, like review stars or FAQs.

Make sure your schemas are:

• Present where applicable (products, blogs, local business)
• Error-free (use Google’s Rich Results Test)
• Implemented in JSON-LD format

Also, audit:

• Canonical tags to avoid duplicate content
• Sitemaps for correct inclusion of important URLs

These small technical improvements can have a significant impact on crawl efficiency and rankings.

Step 8: Secure Your Site with HTTPS and SSL Checks

Security is a ranking factor. A valid SSL certificate and full HTTPS implementation are mandatory in 2025. Confirm:

• No mixed content warnings
• All HTTP URLs are redirected to HTTPS
• SSL certificate is not expired

Sites that are not secure are flagged in browsers, reducing user trust and hurting SEO performance. Any comprehensive technical SEO services should address this early in the audit.

Step 9: Benchmark SEO Health with Technical SEO Tools

Now that you've gathered and fixed data, benchmark your progress using industry tools. Some of the best include:

• Ahrefs Site Audit
• SEMrush Site Audit
• Google Search Console
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider

These tools provide health scores, flag ongoing issues, and allow you to monitor changes over time. A trusted technical SEO audit service will often deliver monthly reports using these platforms to demonstrate ROI and transparency.

When to Hire a Technical SEO Agency or Use a Technical SEO Audit Service

While small businesses with basic websites can handle simple audits in-house, larger or more complex websites should consider hiring a technical SEO agency or using a dedicated technical SEO audit service. You should outsource if:

• You lack in-house SEO expertise
• Your site has over 100+ pages
• You're experiencing unexplained traffic drops
• You’re preparing for a redesign or migration

An experienced agency brings specialized tools, proven workflows, and deeper insights that can identify and resolve issues faster and more efficiently.

Conclusion

A technical SEO audit isn’t a one-time task—it’s a continuous process. As search engine algorithms evolve and your site grows, new issues will arise so turn to Bridgeway       Affilate Network. Regular audits ensure your website stays optimized, accessible, and ready to rank. Whether you handle it in-house or partner with a technical SEO agency, these audits help maintain site health, improve performance, and protect your rankings.