Technical SEO Checklist: Core Web Vitals, Crawlability & Schema

You can publish excellent content and still not rank if search engines struggle to crawl, render or understand your site. Technical SEO removes those barriers. It is the foundation that every other SEO effort — content, links, local SEO — depends on.

Use this checklist to audit your website. Work through it in order: crawling and indexing issues block everything else, so fix them first.

1. Crawlability: can search engines reach your pages?

• robots.txt allows important sections and blocks only genuinely private areas (admin, cart, internal search results).
• XML sitemap lists every canonical, indexable URL — and nothing else — and is submitted in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• No orphan pages. Every important page is linked from at least one other page.
• Server responses return 200 for live pages, 301 for permanent moves and 404 or 410 for removed content. Avoid redirect chains.
• JavaScript rendering. If your site relies on JavaScript, confirm the rendered HTML contains the main content. Server-side rendering or prerendering is the safest approach.

2. Indexing: are the right pages in Google?

• Check the Pages report in Search Console for "Crawled – currently not indexed" and "Duplicate without user-selected canonical".
• Every page has a self-referencing canonical tag, and duplicates point to the preferred version.
• Thin or near-duplicate pages (tag archives, filtered URLs, empty categories) are either improved, consolidated or set to noindex.
• One URL per page: choose between www and non-www, and HTTP always redirects to HTTPS.

3. Core Web Vitals and page speed

Google's Core Web Vitals measure real-user experience. A page passes when at least 75% of visits meet these thresholds:

Common fixes:

1. LCP: serve correctly sized, compressed images (WebP or AVIF), preload the hero image, reduce server response time and inline critical CSS.
2. INP: remove unused JavaScript, defer third-party scripts such as chat widgets, and break up long tasks.
3. CLS: set width and height on images and embeds, reserve space for banners, and load web fonts with font-display: swap.

Slow templates and plugin-heavy themes are the most frequent cause of failing scores — which is why we compare the options in custom website vs WordPress.

4. Mobile experience

Google indexes the mobile version of your site. Check that:

• Content and structured data on mobile match desktop.
• Tap targets are large enough and text is readable without zooming.
• Popups do not cover the main content on arrival.

5. Site architecture and internal linking

• Keep important pages within three clicks of the homepage.
• Use a clear hierarchy: home → service hubs → individual service or location pages → supporting articles.
• Link from supporting blog posts to the relevant service page with descriptive anchor text.
• Use breadcrumbs so users and search engines understand where a page sits.

6. On-page technical elements

• Unique, descriptive title tags (roughly 50–60 characters) and meta descriptions (roughly 140–160 characters).
• One H1 per page that matches search intent, followed by a logical H2/H3 structure.
• Descriptive alt text on meaningful images.
• Clean, readable URLs using hyphens and lowercase words.

7. Structured data (schema markup)

Structured data helps search engines — and AI assistants — understand what a page is about. Priorities for most business websites:

• Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage with name, logo, address and contact details.
• Service on service pages.
• Article or BlogPosting on blog posts, with author, dates and image.
• FAQPage where a page genuinely answers common questions.
• BreadcrumbList on every inner page.

Validate markup with Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator, and make sure it matches visible content.

8. Optimising for AI search (AEO and GEO)

AI search tools such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity summarise pages and cite sources. To be cited:

• Put a direct, factual answer near the top of each page.
• Use question-style headings that match how people ask.
• Keep facts consistent across your website, Google Business Profile and directories.
• Publish an llms.txt file summarising your key pages.

9. Ongoing monitoring

Technical SEO is maintenance. Each month, review Search Console's indexing, Core Web Vitals and enhancement reports; after every release, re-check speed and structured data; and twice a year, run a full crawl with a tool such as Screaming Frog.

If you would rather have specialists handle this, our SEO services start with exactly this audit, then fix issues directly in your site's code — and pair well with a digital marketing plan that turns rankings into leads.