Technical SEO Checklist: Fix Issues That Hurt Your Traffic

Your content might be killer, but if your site’s technical SEO is broken, Google won’t care. Slow load times, missing tags, or crawl errors can quietly kill your traffic while you’re busy wondering why rankings dropped.

This checklist will help you find and fix the technical SEO issues that could be holding your site back.

Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO

Before diving into the checklist, it’s important to understand where technical SEO stands compared to on-page SEO. While both aim to improve your website’s visibility, they tackle different sides of optimization.

On-page SEO focuses on what users see: keywords, meta tags, headings, and content quality. Technical SEO, on the other hand, deals with what search engines see. It can be your site’s structure, speed, security, and crawlability.

In short, on-page SEO helps you look good to readers; technical SEO helps you get noticed by Google.

Technical SEO Checklist: Core Areas to Audit

Now that we’ve cleared up how technical SEO differs from on-page SEO, it’s time to get your hands dirty. This checklist covers the essential areas you should audit regularly to make sure your website is fully optimized for both users and search engines.

These are the technical foundations that keep your traffic growing:

1. Site Speed and Performance

No matter how great your content is, no one’s going to stick around if your site takes forever to load. No wonder speed is a ranking factor and a user experience dealbreaker. It signals to Google that your site is healthy, efficient, and worth ranking higher.

Google reports show that if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load, over half of visitors will bail. That’s a huge chunk of potential traffic lost before they even see what you offer.

Start by testing your website with Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Lighthouse. These tools break down what’s slowing you down, whether it’s unoptimized images, excessive JavaScript, or sluggish server response times.

A few key fixes include:

• Compressing images without losing quality (try TinyPNG or WebP format).

• Minifying CSS and JavaScript to reduce file sizes.

• Enabling browser caching, so repeat visitors don’t have to reload every asset.

• Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to serve files from servers closer to users.

• Choosing reliable hosting, because no optimization can outpace a bad server.

2. Mobile-Friendliness

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re practically turning away half your visitors at the door. With most web traffic now coming from mobile devices, Google has made mobile-first indexing the standard, meaning it primarily uses your site’s mobile version for ranking and indexing.

So, if your mobile experience is clunky, slow, or hard to navigate, your rankings will take the hit.

Start by running your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. It’ll show you how well your pages adapt to smaller screens and highlight any issues, like text that’s too small, clickable elements too close together, or content that doesn’t fit properly.

Here are a few ways to make your site truly mobile-optimized:

• Use responsive design. Make sure your layout automatically adjusts to any screen size.Simplify navigation. Menus should be thumb-friendly and easy to tap.

• Avoid intrusive pop-ups that cover content on mobile screens.

• Optimize images and videos for mobile so they load quickly without draining data.

• Test across multiple devices. What looks fine on an iPhone might break on an Android or tablet.

3. Crawlability and Indexing

Even the most optimized pages are useless if search engines can’t find them. Crawlability and indexing are the foundation of technical SEO.

They determine whether Google can discover, read, and display your pages in search results. If your site structure or settings block crawlers, your pages might as well be invisible.

If crawling is how Google finds your pages, indexing is how it remembers them. Once crawlers access your site, make sure your key pages are indexable. No accidental “noindex” tags or blocked scripts.

The goal is simple: help search engines do their job easily, so your content gets the visibility it deserves.

Start by checking your robots.txt file. This small but mighty file tells search engines which parts of your site they’re allowed to access. One misplaced line of code can accidentally block important pages from being crawled.

Next, review your XML sitemap. Make sure it only includes relevant, canonical pages, and that it’s submitted through Google Search Console.

Here are key steps to keep your site crawlable and index-ready:

• Audit your robots.txt file to ensure no essential pages are disallowed.

• Use an XML sitemap to help search engines navigate your site efficiently.

• Avoid orphan pages (pages not linked from anywhere) by maintaining solid internal linking.

• Fix crawl errors and monitor coverage reports in Google Search Console.

• Check canonical tags to prevent duplicate content from confusing search engines.

4. HTTPS and Site Security

Google has made it clear that HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a ranking signal, meaning unsecured websites using plain HTTP are at an immediate disadvantage.

Beyond SEO, visitors are also quick to notice when a site isn’t secure; that little “Not Secure” warning in the browser bar can send them running faster than a slow page load.

At its core, HTTPS encrypts the communication between your website and your visitors, keeping sensitive information (such as logins, contact forms, and payment data) safe from eavesdroppers.

To enable HTTPS, you’ll need an SSL certificate, which you can obtain from your hosting provider or through free services like Let’s Encrypt.

Here’s how to make sure your site’s security doesn’t cost you traffic:

• Install a valid SSL certificate and ensure it’s renewed before expiration.

• Redirect all HTTP pages to HTTPS using 301 redirects.

• Update internal links and canonical tags to point to HTTPS versions.

• Check for mixed content issues, where secure pages still load insecure elements (like old images, explainer videos media, videos, or script URLs).

• Use security headers (e.g., HSTS, X-Frame-Options) to further protect your site from attacks.

5. Structured Data (Schema Markup)

If SEO were a language, structured data would be the translator that helps Google understand your content better. It’s the behind-the-scenes code (known as schema markup) that gives search engines extra context about what’s on your page.

When implemented correctly, structured data can make your pages stand out with rich results. Those eye-catching search listings with star ratings, FAQs, images, or prices. And that visibility can lead to higher click-through rates, even if you’re not ranking first.

---

Wrapping Up

Technical SEO is pretty much all about building a website that works smoothly for both people and search engines. When your site loads fast, stays secure, and is easy for Google to crawl, everything else (i.e., rankings, visibility, and traffic) falls into place naturally.

So before you publish your next blog or campaign, take a step back and run through this checklist. Fixing these behind-the-scenes issues might not be flashy, but it’s the foundation that keeps your digital presence strong.

---

Author Bio

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).