Before you spend months on content and links, make sure search engines can actually crawl and understand your site. Here is a quick audit.
1. Check indexing
Search site:yourdomain.com in Google and open the Pages report in Google Search Console. Important pages should be indexed. Pages marked “Crawled, not indexed” or “Excluded” need a look.
2. Review robots.txt and noindex tags
Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and make sure you are not blocking important folders. A leftover “noindex” setting from development is a classic mistake.
3. Submit an XML sitemap
Add your sitemap in Search Console so Google finds new pages faster.
4. Fix broken links and redirect chains
Crawl the site with a tool such as Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs). Fix 404 pages that still get links, and make redirects go straight to the final page.
5. Use HTTPS everywhere
Every page should load over HTTPS, and the http and www versions should redirect to one preferred version.
6. Check speed and Core Web Vitals
Run your key pages through PageSpeed Insights. Large images, heavy scripts and slow hosting are the usual causes.
7. Make the site mobile friendly
Most searches happen on phones. Check text size, tap targets and that nothing overflows the screen.
8. Fix duplicate content with canonicals
If the same content opens on several URLs, set a canonical tag that points to the main one.
Quick start: open Search Console today and read the Pages and Core Web Vitals reports. They will show you the biggest problems first.
What is the most common technical issue you find on sites?
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