Technical SEO checklist for business websites

Technical SEO is the set of checks that let search engines crawl, index and understand your pages. The essentials are: important pages are reachable and indexable, each page has one canonical URL, redirects are clean, the site is fast on phones, and structured data matches what is visible on the page.

• Important pages are reachable through links and are not blocked by robots rules or a stray noindex tag.
• Pages you do not want in search (thank-you pages, internal search results) are excluded on purpose.
• An XML sitemap lists the pages you want indexed, and only those.
• Each page has a single canonical URL, and variants (with and without trailing slash, http and https, www and non-www) redirect to it.

Google’s own guidance is that sitemaps are optional and links are the main way pages are found, so strong internal linking matters more than the sitemap file.

• Every important page is reachable within a few clicks from the homepage.
• Links use descriptive text, not “click here”.
• Old URLs redirect to the right new page with a permanent redirect, not to the homepage.
• There are no redirect chains or broken internal links.
• URLs are readable and consistent.

Related content should link together: for example, a service page links to guides that go deeper, and guides link back to the service. Our local SEO and AI search optimisation pages are built this way.

Most visitors arrive on a phone, so test there. Google’s Core Web Vitals give three measures: Largest Contentful Paint (2.5 seconds or less is “good”), Interaction to Next Paint (200 milliseconds or less) and Cumulative Layout Shift (0.1 or less), assessed at the 75th percentile of real visits. Our plain-language guide explains them: Core Web Vitals explained. See also website performance.

• A unique, clear title on every page.
• A short, accurate meta description (it may or may not be shown as the snippet).
• One main heading (H1) and a logical order of sub-headings.
• Descriptive alt text on meaningful images.
• Structured data that matches the visible content and validates without errors.

The whole site should load over HTTPS, with no mixed-content warnings, and software should be kept up to date. A hacked or unavailable site loses visitors and search visibility quickly. See website security and website maintenance.

Google states that there are no additional technical requirements, and no special markup, to appear in its AI features beyond the standard requirements: the page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. Allowing crawling, linking internally and keeping important content as text are the same basics. Read more in what AI search means for small businesses and GEO explained.

A full review is worth doing before and after any redesign or migration. See planning a website redesign without losing your SEO. Our technical SEO service runs this audit for you.

What is technical SEO?

It is the work that makes a website easy for search engines to crawl, index and understand: site structure, redirects, canonical URLs, speed, mobile experience and structured data.

Do I need an XML sitemap?

It is optional but useful, particularly for new or large sites. It should list only the canonical, indexable pages you want found.

How long do technical fixes take to show results?

Search engines need to recrawl pages first, so changes are not instant. The time varies by site and cannot be promised.

Can I do technical SEO myself?

Many basics can be checked in Search Console and a crawler. Complex issues such as rendering, migrations and structured data usually need a specialist.

Facts in this article that come from outside sources are linked here. Everything else is our own recommendation, based on how we build and maintain websites.

• SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central — titles, headings, links, sitemaps, content
• Web Vitals — web.dev — the three metrics and their “good” thresholds
• AI features and your website — Google Search Central — what Google says about AI Overviews and AI Mode