Technical SEO: 10 checks every site should pass

Technical SEO is the invisible part of a website. Visitors never notice it, yet it decides whether Google can find, understand and show your pages at all. These are the ten things we check first on every new project.

1. The site is indexed. Search Google for site:yoursite.com. If nothing shows up, check that WordPress’s “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box is unticked, and add the site to Google Search Console.
2. robots.txt does not block what matters. It must not block pages, CSS or JavaScript that Google needs to see the site the way a visitor does.
3. There is an XML sitemap. WordPress generates /wp-sitemap.xml automatically. Submit it in Search Console and watch for errors.
4. One address per page. HTTPS everywhere, one version with or without www, and 301 redirects from all the others. Duplicate addresses split a page’s strength.
5. A unique title and description. Every page has its own title (around 50–60 characters) with the main topic first, and a meta description that makes people want to click.
6. One H1 and a logical hierarchy. The page title is the H1, sections are H2, subsections H3. No skipping levels just to get a smaller font.
7. Speed in the green. The Core Web Vitals targets are LCP up to 2.5 s, INP up to 200 ms and CLS up to 0.1. Test with PageSpeed Insights on mobile.
8. Works well on a phone. Google indexes the mobile version of your site. If something is missing there, it does not exist for Google.
9. No broken links. 404 pages and redirect chains lose both visitors and trust. When an address changes, always add a 301 redirect.
10. Images are light and described. WebP or AVIF, explicit dimensions, lazy loading below the first screen, and meaningful alt text.

Bonus: bilingual sites

If your site is in two languages, each version needs its own address and hreflang links to the other. That way Google shows the right language to the right person instead of treating the versions as duplicate content.

Technical SEO will not lift you on its own. It removes what holds you down.

How often to check

Open Search Console once a month: the indexing report, Core Web Vitals and manual actions. After any big change — a redesign, new URLs, a new plugin — run the whole checklist again.

If you like, we will go through the list for you and send a short report of what to fix first.