Technical SEO Technical SEO Deep Dives

Technical SEO Audit Checklist for Non-Technical Business Owners

You don't need to be a developer to check your site's technical SEO. This plain-English checklist covers everything that matters.

By Matt Jennings

The phrase “technical SEO” makes most business owners’ eyes glaze over. It sounds like something that requires a computer science degree and a lot of patience.

Good news: it doesn’t. Most of the technical SEO issues that hurt small business websites can be identified (and often fixed) without writing a single line of code. You just need to know what to look for.

Here’s your plain-English checklist.

The 60-Second Smell Test

Before diving into specifics, do this: pull up your website on your phone. How does it feel?

  • Does it load in under 3 seconds?
  • Can you read the text without zooming?
  • Is the navigation easy to use with your thumb?
  • Can you find your phone number and address within 5 seconds?

If you answered “no” to any of these, you’ve already found your first issues. Most of your visitors are on mobile, so this matters more than anything.

Checklist Item 1: Site Speed

Slow sites lose visitors and rankings. Period. About 53% of mobile users abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load.

How to check: Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL. Google will give you a score from 0-100 for both mobile and desktop.

What to look for:

  • Mobile score above 50 (ideally above 70)
  • Desktop score above 70 (ideally above 90)
  • Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds
  • No major red flags in the diagnostics section

Common fixes:

  • Compress and resize images (the number one culprit for slow sites)
  • Enable browser caching
  • Remove unused plugins or scripts
  • Upgrade your hosting if it’s the cheap shared plan you signed up for in 2018

Checklist Item 2: Mobile Friendliness

Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it ranks your site based on its mobile version, not desktop. If your mobile experience is bad, your rankings suffer across the board.

How to check: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or simply use your site on different phones.

What to look for:

  • Text readable without zooming
  • Buttons and links large enough to tap
  • No horizontal scrolling required
  • Forms that work on touchscreens

Checklist Item 3: SSL Certificate (HTTPS)

Your site URL should start with “https://”, not “http://”. The “s” means your site has an SSL certificate, which encrypts data between your site and visitors.

Google has confirmed that HTTPS is a ranking factor. Sites without it also show a “Not Secure” warning in browsers, which scares visitors away.

How to check: Look at your URL bar. If there’s a padlock icon, you’re good. If there’s a “Not Secure” warning, contact your hosting provider. Most offer free SSL certificates through Let’s Encrypt.

Checklist Item 4: Indexing Status

If Google hasn’t indexed your pages, they can’t rank. Simple as that.

How to check: Search for “site:yourdomain.com” in Google. The results show every page Google has indexed.

What to look for:

  • Are your important pages showing up?
  • Are there pages indexed that shouldn’t be (old drafts, test pages, duplicate content)?
  • Is the total number roughly what you’d expect?

For a deeper look, set up Google Search Console and check the Coverage report. It shows exactly which pages are indexed, which are excluded, and why.

Broken links (pages that return a 404 error) frustrate users and waste Google’s crawl budget.

How to check: Use a free tool like Broken Link Checker or Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs).

What to fix:

  • Redirect broken pages to relevant live pages
  • Fix internal links pointing to pages that no longer exist
  • Remove or update links to external sites that are gone

Checklist Item 6: Meta Titles and Descriptions

Every page on your site should have a unique meta title and meta description. These are what show up in Google’s search results.

How to check: Search for your business on Google and look at the titles and descriptions that appear. Or use a tool like Screaming Frog to audit all pages at once.

What to look for:

  • Every page has a unique title (not the same title on every page)
  • Titles are under 60 characters
  • Descriptions are under 160 characters
  • Both include relevant keywords naturally
  • They’re compelling enough to click on

Checklist Item 7: Sitemap and Robots.txt

Your XML sitemap tells Google which pages exist on your site. Your robots.txt file tells Google which pages to crawl and which to skip.

How to check: Go to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml and yourdomain.com/robots.txt.

What to look for:

  • Sitemap exists and lists your important pages
  • Robots.txt exists and isn’t accidentally blocking important pages
  • Both are submitted in Google Search Console

Checklist Item 8: Duplicate Content

Having the same content on multiple URLs confuses Google about which version to rank.

Common causes:

  • www and non-www versions both active
  • HTTP and HTTPS versions both accessible
  • Pagination creating duplicate pages
  • Product or service pages with nearly identical content

The fix: Set up proper canonical tags and redirects. If this sounds too technical, flag it for your web developer.

Checklist Item 9: Schema Markup

Schema markup tells Google exactly what your business is, what you offer, and where you’re located. It’s also increasingly important for AI search engines.

How to check: Use Google’s Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) and enter your URL.

What you should have:

  • LocalBusiness schema on your homepage
  • Service schema on service pages
  • FAQ schema on your FAQ page
  • Review schema if you display testimonials

Checklist Item 10: Core Web Vitals

These are Google’s three metrics for user experience:

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How fast the main content loads. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
  • INP (Interaction to Next Paint): How responsive the site is to clicks. Target: under 200 milliseconds.
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How stable the page is (does stuff jump around while loading?). Target: under 0.1.

How to check: Google Search Console has a Core Web Vitals report, or use PageSpeed Insights.

Don’t Let “Technical” Scare You

You don’t need to fix everything at once. Start with the biggest issues (usually site speed and mobile friendliness) and work your way down. If you already did a basic SEO audit, this checklist helps you go deeper on the technical side.

Want a professional technical SEO audit of your site? Contact us and we’ll identify every issue and build a prioritized fix list.