Technical SEO checklist

A technical SEO checklist covers the parts of your website that visitors rarely notice but search engines depend on: whether Google can crawl the pages, whether it indexes the right versions, whether redirects work, whether pages load fast on a phone and whether structured data describes your business correctly. For a small business site of 10 to 100 pages, all of it fits into the thirty checks below.

You can verify most items with free tools: Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and your browser. Each check includes a short note on why it matters, so you can decide what to fix first.

Crawling: can Google reach your pages?

1. robots.txt doesn't block important sections. One wrong line can hide the whole site. Look at /robots.txt and make sure only admin areas, carts or internal search results are disallowed.
2. An XML sitemap exists and lists only real, indexable pages. No redirected URLs, no 404s, no pages marked noindex.
3. The sitemap is submitted in Search Console and shows a recent read date.
4. Every important page is linked from somewhere on the site. Orphan pages, reachable only through the sitemap, get crawled less and treated as less important.
5. Navigation uses normal HTML links. Menus built only with scripts or buttons that don't use real links can be harder for crawlers.
6. Server errors are rare. Check the Crawl stats report in Search Console for spikes in 5xx errors, which often mean hosting problems.

Indexing: is Google storing the right pages?

7. No accidental noindex. Use URL Inspection on your key pages. A leftover noindex from development is one of the most common launch mistakes.
8. One version of the site. http, https, www and non-www should all redirect permanently to a single address.
9. Self-referencing canonical tags on each page, pointing to its clean URL.
10. Duplicate pages are handled. Printer versions, tag archives, staging copies and tracking-parameter URLs shouldn't compete with your real pages.
11. Thin pages are improved or removed. Empty category pages, placeholder posts and near-identical city pages often end up "Crawled, currently not indexed".
12. The Pages report in Search Console is reviewed monthly, especially new reasons for exclusion.

Site structure and URLs

13. Readable URLs, like /services/drain-cleaning/, not /page?id=482.
14. A shallow structure: key service pages reachable within two or three clicks of the home page.
15. Consistent internal links with descriptive anchor text, such as "drain cleaning service", rather than "read more".
16. Broken internal links fixed. A crawl or the Search Console 404 list shows them.
17. Old URLs redirected with 301s after any redesign or restructure. Chains of several redirects in a row should be collapsed to one hop.
18. A helpful 404 page with links back to main services and a search or contact option.

Speed and Core Web Vitals

19. Largest Contentful Paint is in the "good" range on mobile for key templates. Usually the culprit is a heavy hero image or slow server response.
20. Interaction to Next Paint is good. Heavy scripts, chat widgets and tag-manager clutter often slow responses to taps.
21. Cumulative Layout Shift is low. Images and embeds should have set dimensions, and banners shouldn't push content down after loading.
22. Images are compressed, sized for their display and served in modern formats like WebP or AVIF.
23. Unused plugins, fonts and tracking scripts are removed. Each one adds weight.

Core Web Vitals are explained without jargon in Core Web Vitals for business owners.

Mobile and security

24. The site is fully usable on a phone: readable text, tap targets not crammed together, no horizontal scrolling, forms that work with a phone keyboard.
25. Content is the same on mobile and desktop. Google indexes the mobile version; hiding text on mobile can mean hiding it from Google.
26. HTTPS everywhere, with a valid certificate and no mixed-content warnings.
27. Software and plugins are updated, and the Security issues report is clear. Hacked sites can lose rankings fast.

Structured data and extras

28. LocalBusiness (or a more specific type) structured data with name, address, phone, hours and URL that match your Google Business Profile. Test it in the Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator. My local business schema guide has a sample.
29. Language and region set correctly: the lang attribute on pages, and hreflang if you publish the same content in more than one language.
30. Analytics and Search Console are verified and owned by you, not by a former developer.

How to prioritize

A note on online stores and bigger sites

Online stores add their own technical layer: filter and sorting URLs that multiply pages, product variants, out-of-stock items, pagination and product structured data. If you sell online, the same thirty checks apply, but canonicals, crawl budget and faceted navigation deserve extra attention. A store with a few hundred products can easily generate tens of thousands of URL combinations if filters aren't controlled, and Google may waste its visits on them instead of your best products. E-commerce SEO covers that side.

Keeping it clean after launch

Most technical problems appear after a site goes live, not before. A new plugin adds a script, someone uploads uncompressed photos, a page gets renamed without a redirect. A short monthly look at the Search Console Pages report and Core Web Vitals report catches these early, when they're still small.

When the platform is the problem

Some issues are hard to fix on certain platforms: no control over redirects, bloated code you can't touch, a slow shared server, limited access to structured data or robots settings. At some point patching costs more than rebuilding. I build sites hand-coded or on a custom CMS made for the specific business, so these settings are under your control, and technical SEO is part of every build. If you plan to rebuild, read how to redesign without losing rankings first, then look at website speed optimization if speed is your main pain.