Technical SEO Checklist

Even the most thoroughly developed SEO strategy can fail due to technical errors and oversights on your site. Therefore, internal optimization plays a key role in preparing the resource for further promotion.

Regularly check the technical state of the resource to ensure errors and oversights don’t reduce the effectiveness of SEO work.

Begin weekly checks with an analysis of your resource using Google Search Console (GSC). The console immediately shows the presence of serious errors that could have significant negative consequences.

Internal Optimization

Even the most well-developed SEO strategy can fail due to technical errors and shortcomings on your website. Therefore, internal optimization plays a key role in preparing the resource for further promotion.

Technical SEO Check

Regularly check the technical condition of the resource to ensure errors and shortcomings do not reduce the effectiveness of SEO work. For this, it is necessary to:

• Study Google Search Console (GSC) reports. Start your weekly check with an analysis of your resource using GSC. The console will immediately show the presence of serious errors that can have significant negative consequences.

The Overview section displays several important indicators at once. For example, the Performance shows if there are dips in traffic. Large decreases signal the presence of technical SEO problems. The Index also allows you to detect pages with errors and learn how user-friendly the site is for mobile users.

The Page Indexing section shows if Google has difficulties indexing the site. In case of errors, each can be detailed and diagnosed.

The Sitemap Files section provides information about Sitemap files and is especially convenient if several such files are used. The Status column will inform you about errors—if their number is increasing, it is likely that the site map is set up incorrectly.

Manual Measures—a section that usually does not require careful checking, but also includes it in your weekly monitoring.

Overall, the GSC check will not take more than 10 minutes but will help fight errors and improve overall technical optimization.

• Check the Robots.txt file This file is the primary means of interacting with search engine robots. By analyzing it, you can check how well the pages of the site are crawled. Usually, the indicators within the file do not change often, but they still need to be monitored to ensure that your resource functions correctly. In case of a restart or update of the site, you can always indicate the parameter “Disallow: /” in the file to prohibit crawling for pages under development.

Checking Robots.txt itself is very quick and is unlikely to take more than one minute for a specialist.

• Check the loading speed using Google Analytics Go to the Site Speed – Overview tab in Google Analytics. Compare how this parameter has changed in recent days to assess whether measures should be taken to accelerate loading. You can familiarize yourself with the service’s suggestions for improving the current situation. It is quite possible that some actions you have taken since the last check have led to a slowdown of your site – Google Analytics will help identify problem areas. For more detailed information about the loading speed of individual pages, you can use the Chrome Lighthouse tool. This stage of the check also takes a minimum of time but can potentially be very useful as it directly affects the behavioral factors of promotion.
• Analyze search results Simply entering the most important key queries into the search engine, you can check how the search results have changed. Minor fluctuations and changes in positions are possible – they should not cause concern. However, if your pages have disappeared from the search results or have sharply dropped, you should investigate the reasons that could lead to this. For example, your site may have fallen under the sanctions of the search engine, or a serious problem with indexing has occurred.

To analyze the effectiveness of the resource in the search results, you can also use the Ahrefs service. With its help, you will quickly detect dips in key words and be able to search for and eliminate the problems that provoked this situation.

• Conduct a visual inspection of the site This point may seem obvious, but many SEO specialists do not pay it due attention. Nevertheless, manual checking will help quickly detect various shortcomings and problems. You can start it with the most problematic and suspicious places to ensure that your resource is functioning normally. It is important that such a check allows you to evaluate the site from the user’s perspective and can give ideas for further improvement.

You should also check the correctness of the program code. For this, in the Chrome browser, you need to go to Developer Tools > View Page Source. Certainly, this method of checking requires a good knowledge of the code.

• Check the link profile It is necessary to check the correctness of the incoming links to your site weekly. GSC tools will help in this – the console will timely indicate the presence of errors, for example, if an external resource links to a non-existent page or in case of incorrectly specified redirect. However, it is not possible to analyze the entire profile in this way, as it may not be fully displayed in this service. Also, Ahrefs tools can be used to analyze the functionality of incoming links.

If your link building strategy includes purchasing links in relevant services such as Serpzilla, you can use the accompanying tools to monitor the link profile. You will know how many links of what types you have purchased and also – which of them are successfully indexed.

During weekly monitoring, you can make additional purchases of the necessary links to maintain a constant, uniform expansion of the profile. A number of services allow you to purchase them automatically, significantly simplifying the implementation of a link building strategy. The time spent on purchasing directly depends on how convenient the link building services used by the SEO specialist are and how rich their functionality is.

The Overview section displays several important indicators at once. For example, Performance shows if there are dips in traffic. Large decreases signal the presence of technical SEO problems. Indexing also allows you to detect pages with errors and learn how user-friendly the site is for mobile device users.

The Page Indexing section shows if Google has difficulties indexing the site. In case of errors, each can be detailed and diagnosed.

The Sitemap Files section provides information about Sitemap files and is especially useful if several such files are used. In the Status column, you will learn about errors — if their number is increasing, it is likely that the sitemap is set up incorrectly.

Manual Actions — a section that usually does not require detailed checking, but should also be included in your weekly monitoring.

Overall, the GSC check will not take more than 10 minutes but will help in combating errors and improving overall technical optimization.

Check the Robots.txt File

This file is the main means of interaction with search engine robots. By analyzing it, you can check how well the pages of the site are crawled. Usually, the indicators inside the file do not change often, but they still need to be monitored to ensure that your resource functions correctly. In case of a restart or update of the site, you can always specify the parameter “Disallow: /” in the file to prohibit crawling for pages under development.

The Robots.txt file is the primary means of interaction with search engine robots. By analyzing it, you can check how well the pages of your site are being crawled. Typically, the indicators within the file do not change often; however, they still need to be monitored to ensure that your resource is functioning correctly. In the case of a restart or update of the site, you can always specify the parameter “Disallow: /” in the file to prohibit crawling for pages under development.

The check of the Robots.txt file itself is very quick and is unlikely to take more than one minute for a specialist.

Check Loading Speed Using Google Analytics

In the Google Analytics service, go to the Site Speed – Overview tab. Compare how this parameter has changed in recent days to assess whether measures should be taken to accelerate loading. You can familiarize yourself with the service’s suggestions for improving the current situation. It’s quite possible that some actions you have taken since the last check have led to a slowdown of your site — Google Analytics will help identify problem areas. For more detailed information about the loading speed of individual pages, you can use the Chrome Lighthouse tool. This stage of the check also takes a minimum of time but can potentially be very useful as it directly affects the behavioral factors of promotion.

Analyze Search Results

Simply entering the most important keywords into the search engine, you can check how the search results have changed. Minor fluctuations and changes in positions are possible — they should not cause concern. However, if your pages have disappeared from the search results or have sharply dropped, an investigation into the causes that could have led to this should be conducted. For example, your site may have fallen under the sanctions of the search engine, or a serious problem with indexing has occurred.

To analyze the effectiveness of the resource in the search results, you can also use the Ahrefs service. With its help, you will quickly find dips in keywords and be able to search for and eliminate the problems that provoked this situation. 

Conduct a Visual Inspection of the Site

This point may seem obvious, but many SEO specialists do not pay it due attention. Nevertheless, a manual check will help quickly detect various shortcomings and problems. You can start it with the most problematic and suspicious places to ensure that your resource is functioning normally. Importantly, such a check allows you to evaluate the site from the user’s perspective and can provide ideas for further improvement.

You should also check the correctness of the program code. For this, in the Chrome browser, you should go to Developer Tools > View Page Source. Certainly, this method of checking requires a good knowledge of the code.

Check the Link Profile

It is necessary to check the correctness of the incoming links to your site weekly. GSC tools will assist in this – the console will timely indicate the presence of errors, for example, if an external resource links to a non-existent page or in case of incorrectly specified redirect. However, it is not possible to analyze the entire profile in this way, as it may not be fully displayed in this service. Also, Ahrefs tools can be used to analyze the functionality of incoming links.

If your link building strategy includes purchasing links in relevant services such as Serpzilla, you can use the accompanying tools to monitor the link profile. You will know how many links of what types you have purchased and also – which of them are successfully indexed.

During weekly monitoring, you can make additional purchases of the necessary links to maintain a constant, uniform expansion of the profile. A number of services allow you to purchase them automatically, significantly simplifying the implementation of a link building strategy. The time spent on purchasing directly depends on how convenient the link building services used by the SEO specialist are and how rich their functionality is.

Conduct a Visual Inspection of the Site

A visual inspection of the site may seem obvious, but many SEO specialists do not give it the necessary attention. Nevertheless, a manual check will quickly help detect various shortcomings and problems. You can start it with the most problematic and suspicious places to ensure that your resource functions normally. Importantly, such a check allows you to evaluate the site from the user’s perspective and can provide ideas for further improvement.

You should also check the correctness of the program code. For this, in the Chrome browser, you should go to Developer Tools > View Page Source. Certainly, this method of checking requires a good knowledge of the code.

Check the Link Profile

It is necessary to check the correctness of the incoming links to your site weekly. GSC tools will assist in this – the console will timely indicate the presence of errors, for example, if an external resource links to a non-existent page or in case of incorrectly specified redirect. However, it is not possible to analyze the entire profile in this way, as it may not be fully displayed in this service. Also, Ahrefs tools can be used to analyze the functionality of incoming links.

If your link building strategy includes purchasing links in relevant services such as Serpzilla, you can use the accompanying tools to monitor the link profile. You will know how many links of what types you have purchased and also – which of them are successfully indexed.

During weekly monitoring, you can make additional purchases of the necessary links to maintain a constant, uniform expansion of the profile. A number of services allow you to purchase them automatically, significantly simplifying the implementation of a link building strategy. The time spent on purchasing directly depends on how convenient the link building services used by the SEO specialist are and how rich their functionality is.