Guide
Technical SEO audit checklist
A practical technical SEO checklist for service business websites: crawling, indexing, speed, mobile, structured data, international setup and security, with what to check and how.
VAULT 33|27 · Updated 12 November 2026 · Reviewed 12 November 2026 · 2 min read
Start with the free VAULT Business Audit for a quick first look, then work through this list.
Crawling
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| robots.txt does not block important sections | Open yoursite.com/robots.txt |
| No important pages blocked by login or scripts | Test key pages with Search Console URL Inspection |
| Internal links are crawlable HTML links | Inspect the page source |
| No endless parameter or filter URLs | Crawl the site and look for duplicates |
Indexing
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| Money pages are indexed | Search Console Page indexing and URL Inspection |
| No accidental noindex on live pages | Crawl for robots meta tags |
| Canonicals point to the right version | Crawl, compare canonical with URL |
| Duplicate and thin pages handled | Merge, improve or noindex |
| XML sitemap lists only indexable pages and is submitted | Search Console Sitemaps |
Speed and mobile
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| Core Web Vitals pass on key templates | PageSpeed Insights, Search Console |
| Images sized and compressed | PageSpeed diagnostics |
| Third-party scripts kept to what is needed | Script inventory |
| Pages work properly on phones | Test on a real device |
Structure and content
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| One H1 and logical headings per page | Crawl |
| Unique titles and descriptions | Crawl for duplicates |
| No orphan pages | Compare crawl with sitemap |
| Redirects are single, permanent hops | Crawl for chains |
| No broken internal links | Crawl for 404s |
Structured data and international
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| Valid LocalBusiness, Service and breadcrumb markup | Rich Results Test |
| Markup matches visible content | Manual review |
| hreflang with return links, correct codes (GB, not UK) | Crawl and inspect |
Security and health
| Check | How |
|---|---|
| HTTPS everywhere, HTTP redirects to HTTPS | Test HTTP versions |
| No security issues or manual actions | Search Console |
| Server errors rare | Crawl stats report |
Prioritise by impact: indexing problems on money pages first, then speed, then everything else. Our technical SEO service runs and fixes this audit.
Sources
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