Great content cannot rank if search engines struggle to access or understand your site. Technical SEO makes sure the foundations are solid. Here are ten checks anyone can do.
1. Your site uses HTTPS
Look for the padlock in the address bar. Free services like Cloudflare give you SSL at no cost.
2. Google can index your pages
Search site:yourdomain.com on Google. If important pages are missing, check Search Console's Pages report.
3. You have an XML sitemap
A sitemap lists the pages you want found. Submit it in Search Console under Sitemaps.
4. robots.txt isn't blocking anything important
Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A line like Disallow: / blocks your whole site.
5. Pages load fast
Test with PageSpeed Insights. Compress images, remove unused plugins and use a CDN.
6. The site works well on mobile
Google mainly uses the mobile version of your site for ranking. Text should be readable and buttons easy to tap.
7. Each page has a unique title and meta description
The title tag is one of the clearest relevance signals and is what people see in search results.
8. One clear H1 per page
Use one main heading, then H2s and H3s to structure the content logically.
9. No broken links or redirect chains
Broken links waste crawl effort and frustrate visitors. Fix or redirect them with a single 301.
10. Canonical tags prevent duplicates
If the same content lives at multiple URLs, a canonical tag tells Google which version is the main one.
Technical SEO doesn't make you rank. It removes the reasons you wouldn't.