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Technical SEO Checklist

42 items across 7 categories: crawlability, speed, mobile, URLs, schema, security, and international/CMS. Platform-agnostic — works for WordPress, headless CMS, Shopify, Webflow, and static sites.

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Technical SEO Checklist with items being worked through and checked off across seven categories

Crawlability and Indexing

Can Googlebot reach your pages, and are the right ones indexed? Check the Coverage report in Google Search Console before anything else.

Confirm robots.txt does not block key paths or CSS/JS needed for rendering

Submit sitemap.xml in Google Search Console and verify it lists only indexable URLs

Remove accidental noindex on money pages (check meta robots + HTTP headers)

Audit crawl budget waste: noindex thin archives, faceted URLs, and duplicate parameter pages

Fix orphan pages with no internal links pointing to them

Resolve "Discovered — currently not indexed" URLs in the GSC Coverage report

Ensure canonical pages return HTTP 200, not soft-404s with 200 status codes

Site Speed and Core Web Vitals

Page speed is both a ranking signal and a conversion factor. Target the templates that drive the most traffic first: homepage, top blog posts, key landing pages.

Hit LCP under 2.5s on mobile for top-traffic templates

Keep CLS under 0.1 — set explicit width/height on images and embeds

Keep INP under 200ms — defer non-critical third-party scripts

Compress images to WebP/AVIF and serve at rendered dimensions, not full resolution

Enable lazy loading on below-the-fold images (not on the LCP image)

Enable browser caching and a CDN for static assets

Eliminate render-blocking CSS/JS on above-the-fold content

Mobile and Rendering

Google uses mobile-first indexing. If mobile hides content, breaks navigation, or renders differently from desktop, your rankings reflect the weaker version.

Verify mobile-first indexing: mobile and desktop content parity on key pages

Pass Google's Mobile-Friendly Test on homepage and top 5 landing pages

Fix JavaScript rendering gaps — view rendered HTML, not just source

Remove intrusive interstitials that block content on mobile

Set viewport meta tag correctly; no horizontal scroll on mobile

URL Structure and Architecture

URL architecture determines how authority flows through your site. Duplicate URLs split link equity. Redirect chains leak it. Orphan pages receive none.

Set self-referencing canonical tags on every indexable page

Eliminate duplicate content across www/non-www, HTTP/HTTPS, and trailing-slash variants

Keep URLs short, lowercase, hyphenated — no session IDs or junk parameters

Fix redirect chains longer than one hop (consolidate to single 301)

Build internal links from high-authority pages to pages with zero inlinks

Keep site depth under 3 clicks from homepage for priority content

Structured Data

Schema markup tells search engines what your content represents. Valid schema can earn rich results and improves citation likelihood in AI Overviews.

Add Article or BlogPosting schema on all blog content

Add FAQPage schema only where genuine FAQ sections exist on-page

Add BreadcrumbList matching visible breadcrumb navigation

Add Organization / WebSite schema on homepage

Validate with Google Rich Results Test — fix errors, not just warnings you understand

Match schema properties to visible on-page content (no invisible FAQ markup)

Security and Accessibility

HTTPS is a confirmed ranking signal. Accessibility overlaps with SEO — alt text helps image search, semantic HTML helps crawlers parse content structure.

Force HTTPS everywhere in a single redirect hop

Fix broken internal links (404s) found in crawl

Return proper 404 status codes for deleted pages, not redirects to homepage

Set HSTS header after confirming HTTPS stability

Add alt text to content images (accessibility + image search)

Ensure color contrast and focus states pass basic WCAG checks on key templates

International and Headless CMS Considerations

Skip this section if you run a single-language site on a traditional CMS. Headless and JAMstack sites introduce specific risks around preview URLs, rendering, and sitemap sync.

Implement hreflang tags for each language/region variant (if multilingual)

Use x-default hreflang for the fallback locale

Ensure CMS preview/staging URLs are blocked from indexing (noindex + auth)

Confirm SSR/SSG delivers full HTML to crawlers, not empty shells

Sync sitemap generation with CMS publish/unpublish events

Go deeper on each category

WordPress Technical SEO: 8 Fixes That Move Rankings →WordPress SEO Audit: The Exact 10-Step Process →WordPress SEO Checklist 2026 (free, 47 items) →How to Automate SEO →How to Rank in AI Overviews: The 2026 Playbook →Generative Engine Optimization: The Complete Guide →

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