A technical SEO checklist you can run in one afternoon

Start with indexing

Nothing else matters if pages cannot be indexed. Check robots.txt, confirm no accidental noindex tags on real pages, verify the sitemap is submitted and returns the URLs you expect, and look at coverage errors in Search Console.

Titles and descriptions

Every page gets a unique title under about 60 characters with its main term near the front, and a description under 160 characters written to be clicked, not to be stuffed.

Headings and structure

One H1 per page that matches the page's purpose, then H2s that mirror the questions a reader has. If your headings read like a table of contents, the structure is right.

Canonicals and duplicates

Point canonical tags at the URL you want ranked, and make sure parameters, trailing slashes and printable versions do not create three copies of the same page.

Structured data

Add schema that matches the page type: Article for posts, FAQPage for real question blocks, Breadcrumb for hierarchy. Validate it; invalid markup is worse than none.

Speed and Core Web Vitals

Images sized and compressed, third-party scripts deferred, layout shift eliminated with explicit dimensions.

Running the checklist step by step

1. Crawlability: robots.txt allows important pages; the sitemap lists only canonical URLs.
2. Indexing: each page has one canonical URL and no accidental noindex.
3. Titles and descriptions: unique for every page — check them with the SEO audit.
4. Speed on phones: compressed images, deferred scripts, stable layout.
5. Structured data: Article, Organization and BreadcrumbList where relevant.
6. Monitoring: review Search Console coverage monthly.

Worked example from our own site

During an audit we found older article URLs reachable both with and without a trailing slash. Adding a single canonical form and listing only that form in the sitemap removed the duplicates. Separately, converting article images to WebP cut image weight from roughly 3 MB to 0.55 MB, which improved mobile loading.

Comparison table: priority vs effort

Internal links

Every important page should be reachable in two clicks and linked from related content with descriptive anchor text. Internal linking is the cheapest ranking work available.