Technical SEO Audit You Can Do Yourself in One Afternoon
Read time: 8 minutes | SEO | Small Business | Tools
Read time: 8 minutes | SEO | Small Business | Tools
The phrase "technical SEO audit" sounds like something you need a developer for. You do not. The majority of issues that quietly kill a site's search performance are visible to anyone who knows where to look. Missing page titles. Pages Google cannot crawl. Slow load times on mobile. Broken links. All of these are findable without writing a single line of code.
This guide walks you through the essential checks in the order that matters. By the end of the afternoon you will have a clear picture of what is working, what is broken, and what to fix first.
What you need: A Google account (for Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights), a free Screaming Frog account, your website URL, and a notepad to log issues as you find them. Nothing else.
Step 1: Check What Google Can Actually See
Before anything else, you need to know what Google is indexing. A page Google cannot see is a page that cannot rank.
1A — Check Your robots.txt File
Go to yourdomain.com/robots.txt in your browser. You should see a short file with rules about what Google can and cannot crawl. If you see Disallow: / on its own line under User-agent: * — stop everything. That single line tells every crawler, including Google, to leave your entire site alone. It is a common accidental setting in WordPress and Squarespace and it is catastrophic for rankings.
What you want to see:
User-agent: * Disallow: Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
A blank Disallow means nothing is blocked. Specific paths like /wp-admin/ or /checkout/ being blocked is normal and fine.
1B — Check Google Search Console Coverage
Open Google Search Console, go to Indexing → Pages. You will see two numbers: Indexed and Not Indexed. Make a note of both.
The Not Indexed section shows reasons. The ones worth acting on:
- Crawled — currently not indexed: Google found the page but chose not to index it. Usually means thin or duplicate content.
- Discovered — currently not indexed: Google knows the page exists but has not crawled it yet. Can indicate crawl budget issues on large sites.
- Duplicate without user-selected canonical: Common on Shopify and WooCommerce. Product variant URLs are creating duplicate pages. Add canonical tags to resolve.
- Excluded by noindex tag: A noindex tag is on the page. Check it is intentional.
Not Indexed numbers significantly higher than your Indexed count on a small site is a signal something is wrong. On a Shopify store with hundreds of product variants it is normal. On a 30-page service business website it is not.
1C — Test Your XML Sitemap
Go to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. If it loads and shows a list of URLs, it is working. If you get a 404 error, you do not have a sitemap and should create one immediately.
Then in Google Search Console go to Indexing → Sitemaps and check the status. It should say Success. Errors mean Google is having trouble reading it.
Step 2: Check Your On-Page Basics
These are the elements Google reads on every page to understand what it is about. Missing or duplicate versions of these directly suppress rankings.
2A — Check Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
The easiest way to check these across your whole site is Screaming Frog SEO Spider (free up to 500 URLs). Run a crawl and look at the Page Titles and Meta Description tabs.
What to look for:
- Missing: Pages with no title tag are nearly invisible to Google.
- Duplicate: Multiple pages sharing the same title confuse Google about which one to rank.
- Too long: Title tags over 60 characters get cut off in search results. Meta descriptions over 155 characters get truncated.
- Too vague: "Home" or "About" as a page title tells Google nothing about what the page is for.
Quick fix formula: Primary keyword + Brand name, under 60 characters. Example: Home Care Services in New Jersey | Towne Home Care
2B — Check Your H1 Tags
Every page should have exactly one H1 tag. In Screaming Frog look at the H1 column and check for:
- Missing H1: The page has no main heading.
- Multiple H1s: More than one H1 confuses Google about the page's primary topic.
- H1 that does not match the title tag: Both should include the target keyword and be closely related.
2C — Check Your Image Alt Text
Alt text tells Google what an image contains. Every image should have a brief, descriptive alt text. In Screaming Frog go to the Images tab and filter for missing alt text. Blank alt text on product images, blog images, and hero images is a common issue that is easy to fix and directly improves both SEO and accessibility.
Step 3: Check Your Site Speed
Google has used page speed as a ranking factor since 2018 and it matters more on mobile than desktop. A slow site does not just rank lower — it converts worse. People leave before the page loads.
3A — Run Google PageSpeed Insights
Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your homepage URL. Check mobile, not desktop — mobile is what Google uses for ranking. You will get a score from 0 to 100 and a list of specific issues.
- 90 to 100: Excellent. No urgent action needed.
- 50 to 89: Needs improvement. Prioritise the flagged issues.
- 0 to 49: Poor. This is actively hurting rankings and conversions.
The most common fixable issues:
- Images not in next-gen formats: Convert JPG and PNG to WebP. Most platforms have plugins or settings for this.
- Render-blocking resources: Javascript or CSS loading before the page content. Usually fixed by a caching plugin.
- Unused Javascript: Third-party scripts like chat widgets, tracking pixels, and social embeds slowing load time. Audit what you actually use.
Tip: Check your site on an actual phone, not just the browser's responsive preview. Count how many seconds it takes before you can read the content. More than 3 seconds is a problem worth fixing.
Step 4: Check for Broken Links
Broken links send visitors to dead pages and waste Google's crawl budget. Both hurt rankings. Finding them takes less than ten minutes.
4A — Find 404 Errors in Google Search Console
In Google Search Console go to Indexing → Pages and filter for "Not found (404)". For each one, either redirect it to the most relevant live page using a 301 redirect, or remove any internal links pointing to it so Google stops trying to crawl it.
4B — Find Broken Internal Links with Screaming Frog
Run a crawl in Screaming Frog and go to Response Codes → Client Error (4xx). This shows every internal link on your site pointing to a page that returns an error. Fix these by updating the links to point to the correct live destination.
Step 5: Check Your Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are three specific metrics Google uses as a ranking signal. See your real-world scores in Google Search Console under Experience → Core Web Vitals.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Should be under 2.5 seconds. Measures how quickly the main content loads.
- First Input Delay (FID): Should be under 100 milliseconds. Measures how quickly the page responds to interaction.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Should be under 0.1. Measures visual stability — whether things jump around as the page loads.
The report splits pages into Good, Needs Improvement, and Poor. Any pages in the Poor category should be investigated first. Click through to see which specific metric is failing.
Step 6: Check Your Internal Linking
Internal links pass authority between pages and help Google understand your site's structure. A page with no internal links pointing to it is an orphan — Google may find it eventually but will not prioritise it.
6A — Find Orphan Pages
In Screaming Frog go to Reports → Orphan Pages. For each orphan page, either add internal links from relevant existing pages, redirect it to a relevant live page if it no longer serves a purpose, or add a noindex tag if it should not rank.
6B — Check Your Most Important Pages Have Enough Internal Links
Your highest priority pages — main service pages, location pages, key product pages — should have multiple internal links pointing to them from elsewhere on the site. In Screaming Frog look at the Inlinks column sorted ascending. Any important page with fewer than three internal links should get more.
Step 7: Check Your Mobile Usability
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. If something is broken on mobile it affects your desktop rankings too.
In Google Search Console go to Experience → Mobile Usability. The most common issues:
- Text too small to read: Font size below 12px on mobile.
- Clickable elements too close together: Buttons or links so close that tapping one often taps another.
- Content wider than screen: Something causing horizontal scrolling on mobile.
Fix all flagged pages before anything else. These are confirmed problems Google has identified on your specific site.
Your One-Afternoon Audit Checklist
Run through these in order. Flag anything that needs fixing in a separate list.
- ☐ robots.txt is not blocking the whole site
- ☐ XML sitemap exists and is submitted in GSC
- ☐ Indexed vs Not Indexed ratio looks healthy
- ☐ No pages accidentally marked noindex
- ☐ All pages have unique, keyword-rich title tags
- ☐ All pages have a meta description under 155 characters
- ☐ Every page has exactly one H1 tag
- ☐ Images have descriptive alt text
- ☐ Mobile PageSpeed score is above 50
- ☐ Core Web Vitals show mostly Good pages
- ☐ No 404 errors in GSC
- ☐ No broken internal links in Screaming Frog
- ☐ No orphan pages with no internal links
- ☐ Key pages have 3 or more internal links pointing to them
- ☐ No mobile usability errors flagged in GSC
What to Do With What You Find
You will almost certainly find issues. That is normal. Every site has them. The goal is not to be alarmed — it is to have a prioritised list of things to fix.
Fix in this order:
- Anything blocking Google from crawling the site — robots.txt, noindex errors, sitemap failures. Fix these immediately.
- Broken links and 404 errors. Redirects take minutes to set up and the benefit is immediate.
- Missing title tags and H1s on your most important pages. These are directly suppressing rankings right now.
- Speed improvements on pages with Poor Core Web Vitals scores. Focus on mobile.
- Internal linking gaps — orphan pages and low-inlink priority pages. Fix these over the following weeks.
One last thing: run this audit again in 90 days. SEO is not a one-time fix. Sites change, plugins update, content gets added, redirects break. Making this a quarterly habit is the difference between a site that quietly grows and one that quietly decays.
VHS Digital is a boutique performance marketing agency based in Edinburgh. We work with independent food and drink brands, healthcare businesses, and e-commerce brands across the UK and US. If you would rather have us run this audit for you, book a free consultation here.
