How to Do a Technical SEO Audit Effectively in 10 Steps

Step 2: Crawl the website and start the analysis

The first step is to crawl your website with your preferred tool.

I usually spend the necessary time to configure these five at the bare minimum:

• Screaming frog, desktop-based crawler
• Sitebulb, desktop-based audit tool
• Oncrawl, cloud-based crawling tool
• Ahrefs, cloud-based crawling tool
• SEOcrawl.com, for GSC visualisations

These initial crawls will help you get an overall view of the website and identify any problems with your SEO.

Once the initial crawl is completed, check the data to ensure you complete the configuration. Ensure the crawls are integrating GSC, GA or Ahrefs or Majestic data via their APIs.

On the cloud-based crawling tools, you now have the chance to configure the page types and different website sections. This may feel like a lot of work, especially for small website audits, but I always do it as it saves me time later with understanding where issues stem from or where bottlenecks exist.

The actual crawl may typically run for about 30 mins, if it’s a small website, and up to 2-3 days, for large websites and depending on how fast the crawler is able to crawl without bringing down the server.

Do not go to aggressive on the crawler speed, even if you have been granted GSC permissions because the devops teams may end up blocking the robots used by different crawling tools.

Once the audit reports are ready, the challenge is to know exactly where to look to find the golden nuggets. If the client has been clear on what is wrong with the website, it is easier to prioritize the analysis. If that’s not the case, the goal is broader as all areas would need to be addressed to help you prioritize the areas of your website that could be negatively impacting your site.

I usually like to take a good look across the entire crawl reports on each crawl tool, take notes, and then narrow down the issues to the biggest ones estimated to bring the best results if they were solved.

Here are some of the things to look out for :

Step 3: Review Google Search Console and Analytics

Once you thoroughly understand your audit results, the next step is to review the Google Search Console and Analytics data individually. Although this data is crunched with the crawl data, provided you have added their APIs to the crawls, it is still worth reviewing the GSC and GA separately.

Google Search Console helps you identify any issues with your website’s SEO. You can use the Search Console to identify any crawl errors, broken links, or other problems affecting your website’s performance.

Google Analytics provides in-depth insights into how users interact with your website, including the number of visits, total time spent, and user conversion rates. This data can help you identify issues with your website’s user experience and make adjustments to improve it.

These programs aim to gain insight into user behavior impacting your SEO performance. Specifically, check for changes in search rankings, impressions, clicks, and other metrics that might indicate an issue.

Additionally, you can review any errors or warnings from the Search Console to see if any urgent technical issues need to exist. For example, if your site is not loading correctly or returning a 404 error, you will want to find out the cause and fix it as soon as possible.

Lastly, by reviewing analytics data, you can identify any potential issues with website usability or user experience. It may include low click-through, high bounce rates, or slow page speed.

Once you have identified any potential issues, prioritize them and create a plan to address them. Start with updating changes to the website code if need be. Then focus on creating an SEO strategy. The images are included in the SEO strategy. For example, you may need to update the picture by selecting a different image with new ALT text and dimensions.

The goal here is to compare your Google notes with the notes from the audit. At this point, you’ll have a complete picture of your website’s performance. You can begin implementing the changes necessary to improve it.

Step 4: Identify Problems With Crawlability and Indexation

So how are crawlability and indexation working together?

Crawlability is the process by which search engine bots succeed (or not) at finding and crawling every critical webpage within a website. Indexability, in turn, is the ability for a web page to be indexed once it has been crawled.

If a page is not accessible for whatever reason, it will not be indexed and will not appear in the search engine results. However, a webpage can be easily crawled and still not indexed by search engines. During the technical SEO audit, you must determine why crawlability and/or indexability fail.

It is essential to assess both indexation and crawlability when performing an SEO audit.

To do this, you can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify any potential crawl errors. Then use Google Search Console to check for any indexation issues. Additionally, you can use specialized tools

If you find any indexation or crawlability issues, note them and determine the cause. Some of the most notorious crawlability issues involve

• numerous counts of broken links,
• solving rendering on javascript-powered websites,
• incomplete or deficient XML sitemaps
• unsuitable or patchy internal linking
• bad information architecture
• incorrect us of the robots.txt file where specific URLs are blocked from crawling

Note: if the site being audited runs on javascript, the paradigm ‘Crawling-indexation’ becomes ‘Crawling-indexation and Rendering’

How to Fix Broken Links

When it comes to technical SEO, broken links are a major issue. If search engine bots can’t access a page, they won’t be able to index it. It can drastically reduce your website’s visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Set time aside to track all the internal links on the website and identify areas of the site or specific content types that may not be getting as much internal link equity as others. This is an essential on technical SEO audits as it allows you to identify and prioritize the issues hindering your website’s performance.

By now, you should have a list of broken links from your site audit and Google Console and Analytics research. Broken links result from various factors, such as outdated URLs or URLs that have gotten deleted from the website. Your options for fixing broken links are removing them entirely or replacing them with a valid link.

Audit XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap is an essential part of a technical SEO audit. It is a special file that tells search engine bots which pages to crawl and index, making it easier for them to find your site.

To audit the XML sitemap, you can use Google Search Console. Once in your dashboard, click on sitemaps on the left sidebar and then click on ‘Add/Test Sitemap’. Enter your sitemap URL, and Google will begin to crawl it, and soon give you a report. The goal, amongst other things, is to ensure that :

every URL in your sitemap is critical to you website

only have compliant URLs in your sitemap (HTML format, 200HTTP, self-canonical URLs)

every URL is linked to the website structure

Every URL in you sitemap should therefore be crawled, indexed and ideally ranked. If one of those three conditions are not met, dig in and find out why. The journey into auditing XML sitemaps often takes you into a deep and complicated rabbit hole.

Always question why there are urls/pages that are indexed and possibly ranking but not have a present in the sitemap group. Every page critical to the business should be in the XML sitemap.

Creating Robots.txt Files

Robots.txt is a text file that commands search engine bots on which pages to avoid crawling and indexing on your website. It can be useful if you have pages you want to avoid being visible in the SERPs. For example, if you have a page with sensitive information or duplicate content, you can use a robots.txt file to block it from being indexed.

To create a robots.txt file, you will add code to a light text file that can be created in notepad. Once you have added the code, upload it to your website’s root directory.

Consider this entire step one of the most important ones in your SEO audit, as any issues with indexation and crawlability will severely limit the visibility of your website in the search engine results.

Check duplication at platform-level

Identical content under the same domain but a different domain protocol is common.

Eg: https://fastbullettrain.com/category/url1 and

http://fastbullettrain.com/category/url1 both could resolve and return HTTP 200

The same issue is common between www and non-www versions of the domain.

When that happens, content is duplicated and reused across different URL versions. This can potentially dilute link equity and confuse users and Google, who may use the wrong canonical version of your domain.

Step 5: Review On-Page Elements

The on-page elements we’re referring to are:

• Page titles and tags
• Meta descriptions
• Data Structure
• Canonical Tags
• Hreflang tags

A website’s on-page elements will tell search engine bots what the page is about and how relevant it is to users’ queries.

When performing an SEO audit, you should benchmark every element against recommended standards and flag that on the report. For example, title tags should be unique, not too long or too short, and contain the target keyword. Likewise for meta descriptions: unique, descriptive, and under 150 characters long.

Additionally if the audit is about Internationalisation, do check for compliance on the following area:

• correct us of language use on page
• appropriate use of Hreflang and their syntax ( not an easy one)
• potential conflicts with canonical tags (this is a common issue)

While the canonical tag tells Google which page version is the original and prevents duplicate content issues, the hreflang tag indicates to search engine bots the language used on a page and the intended region.

The truth is that multiple sites in your network can have articles on the same topic, with all of them providing value to their readers in different geographic locations. That’s why canonical tags and hreflang tags are essential for international SEO. The most minor mistakes here can majorly affect your site’s visibility.

By adding these elements to your site, you will help search engine bots understand the relevance of your pages to the users’ queries in each geographical location.

Step 6: Image Optimization

Images have become an essential part of SEO, as they can provide users with visual cues that make consuming content easier. But it’s not just the visuals that matter. Image optimization with the right size, file type, and ALT attributes can also help your search engine rankings.

Image issues will show up in your audit. The main errors you’ll see are page speed issues, incorrect image size, broken images, and missing ALT text.

Site Speed Issues

The size of images is essential when it comes to speed. If your image files are too large, they will take longer to load, affecting your website’s overall performance. They should not be too small if they want to stand a chance to rank.

Ensure all images used on your site are compressed and not too big. You can use TinyPNG or CompressJPEG for effective compression and resizing.

Incorrect Image Size

When using images on a website, it’s essential to ensure they are correctly sized. If an image is too small or too large, it will look terrible on your website. If the image size isn’t true or causes the image to be blurry or distorted, you increase the chance of losing readers.

You should also specify image size using html.

Broken Images (404s)

Broken images are another common issue when performing an SEO site audit. A broken image is an image that fails to load on the page. A dead link, broken code, or incorrect file type can cause it.

When a broken image pops up, the skeleton of the photo will show up, but it won’t load the picture. Your goal is is to look for patterns that help you work out what has broken up specific groups of images, eg: a recent website migration where images were not taken into account and adequately redirected, much like pages urls.

Missing ALT Text

ALT text or alternative text is a way to provide search engine bots with additional information about an image. ALT text should be descriptive and contain the target keyword. It will help search engine bots better understand the content on your page and increase its relevance to users’ queries.

File Types and Free Images

Finally, ensure you’re using suitable file types for your images. JPGs and PNGs generally work the best for photos, as they have smaller file sizes than other formats. PNG is recommended for logos and other sharp graphics, while JPEG is best for photos and other pictures with great detail.

As you optimize and compress all images, your website’s performance will improve too.

Step 7: Dig Deeper into Internal Links

Internal links are one of the most underrated elements in SEO. They are links that point from one page to another on the same website.

Internal linking is crucial because :

• it helps search engine bots crawl your website and understands each page’s content.
• it allows you to share link equity across pages, which can help improve your search engine rankings. 
• it will enable you to leverage the power of your website’s authority
• you can effectively send traffic from a high-ranking page to a low-ranking page

It can have a favorable effect on the overall SEO of your website. This is why it must be considered highly during a technical SEO audit.

These are some of the things to look at

• Links should be coded in html. Javascript intenal links are not advisable.
• Excessive chained redirects
• Unnecessary redirects
• Links should be easy to find and clearly visible on the page.
• Links should also be descriptive to help understand the content of the pages they are linking to.
• Odd use of ‘nofollow’ in specific segments
• Ensure most internal links, supposed to be permanent, are 301 http
• broken internal links returning 404 HTTP. These lead to a poor user experience, hurting your search engine rankings. 

Step 8: Review External Links

Now, let’s talk about external links; backlinks. These point from one website to another. They are essential for SEO because they help search engine bots find your content and credit it with a vote of confidence.

When performing an SEO site audit, you should review the external links on your website and make sure:

• that they are working properly. Broken external links can lead to a poor user experience, and wasted link equity
• Are external links relevant to the content they are linking to, or you spot many unrelated or spammy links.
• Is there a healthy balance between ‘dofollow’ and ‘nofollow’ backlinks?
• Can you spot patterns of shady backlink practices?

External links need more monitoring than internal links, as you do not have control over the content on the outer pages. You should periodically check to ensure the external links are still working and the linked page’s content is relevant and valuable to your readers.

Finally, one important thing to remember with external links is that they can be seen as endorsements by search engines. If you link to a low-quality website, it could hurt your domain authority and search engine rankings. Only link to reputable websites and sources to ensure your website remains in good standing with search engines.

The overall goal is to avoid creating dead-end articles with your content. The longer you keep your visitors on your website, the more likely they will convert into leads or sales.

You want engaged readers that click on your site, absorb your content, read and click on the ads, and search your site for the solution to their problem. You can keep your visitors engaged and interested with comprehensive and thoughtful links (internal and external links).

Step 9: Analyze Page Performance and Site Speed

Sadly, even if readers love your content, they will grow weary of dealing with slow loading time and may leave your site before they can absorb the information.

Imagine being on your lunch break and needing to order online, but the site keeps crashing. You’d be so frustrated that you would leave the site and go elsewhere. The same is valid for visitors to your website. They won’t stick around to read your content if it takes too long for the page to load.

Since July 2018, Google has looked at your mobile page speed and used that as a ranking factor for organic search engine rankings. If you want to rank higher, you’ll need a fast-loading website.

Analyzing page performance is critical, affecting the user experience and search engine rankings.

When looking at page performance and site speed as part of your SEO site audit, make sure you analyze the following metrics:

Page Load Time 

As mentioned earlier, you want your pages to load quickly for desktop and mobile devices. The longer your page takes the load, the higher the risk of your reader going elsewhere.

Server Response Time 

If your server is slow to respond, it can lead to a poor user experience. Have you ever looked at a website, and because it took so long to load, you got a message saying that the server didn’t respond? Usually, when this happens, you must keep refreshing to load the page.

Image Weight 

Large images take longer to download and can slow your website down. We mention image optimization again because they are crucial to page performance.

Page Size 

Pages must be optimized for speed, meaning images and other elements get compressed but not distorted to enhance page performance. The more pictures and videos you add to your webpage, the bigger it gets and the slower it will load.

Core Web Vitals

HTML/CSS Validation 

Errors in your HTML or CSS can slow down page load time. A mistake in your HTML or CSS means the browser has to work harder, which can slow down page load time.

Your goal is to work hand in hand with Google. All Google wants to do is keep more people on the web and spend more time on each page. They want to increase user experience.

By now, you should see a trend in what you should focus on when doing a technical SEO site audit. You want to ensure that your website is designed for speed, optimized for performance, and has well-structured, engaging, and relevant content. If you pay attention to these things consistently, you will be on a consistent path to ultimate performance and evolution.

Step 10: Run a parallel Javascript-enabled crawl

This step will only be needed if you deal with javascript-powered websites such as NextJS, AngularJS, or others.

You may have asked the site owner if the site runs on javascript, and you may have been told that server-side rendering is running for every webpage, but experience tells me never to take that as a confirmation of a fact.

Running a 2nd crawl with javascript enabled may reveal some valuable points.

Quite often, part of the website is not rendered on the server, or perhaps the site navigation only fires up at the user request level, meaning that the robots may not see the top navigation and may only be finding the website content via HTML or XML sitemaps and internal linking routes.

Compare the n. of total pages of the two crawls: text-only and javascript. If they do not coincide then you have an area to dig in deeper, trying to find out if the part of the website not rendered at the server is appropriately indexed and without render issues. For this, the Inspect tool on GSC is invaluable.