Technical SEO checklist: what to check and fix first

Work top-down: a page that can't be indexed can't rank no matter how good everything below it is.

Can search engines index your pages?

If a page is accidentally blocked, nothing else matters — it simply won't appear in search.

• noindex tags. A stray <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> (a leftover from a staging site, or applied site-wide by mistake) hides pages entirely. Check that only the pages you want hidden carry it.
• robots.txt blocks. A Disallow rule can stop crawlers from ever reaching whole sections. Make sure it isn't blocking pages — or CSS/JS — you need indexed.
• The pages you care about are actually submitted. Every important page should appear in your sitemap.xml so search engines can discover it.

Are you sending clear, consistent signals?

Duplicate and conflicting URLs are the most common source of "my pages just won't rank" problems.

• Canonical tags. When the same content is reachable at more than one URL (tracking parameters, www vs non-www, http vs https), a canonical tag tells search engines which one is the real version. Getting this wrong — e.g. pointing every page at the homepage — can deindex your whole site.
• Redirects. Use a permanent 301 (not a temporary 302) when a URL has truly moved, and avoid long redirect chains. After any migration or URL change, old links should land on the right new page.
• Broken links and 404s. Dead internal links waste crawl budget and frustrate visitors. Fix or redirect them.
• One version of your domain. Pick https:// and either www or the bare domain, and make every other variant redirect to it consistently.

Is the site fast and usable?

Speed and mobile experience are direct ranking factors and affect every page.

• Core Web Vitals. Loading speed (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and layout stability (CLS) are measured by Google and feed into rankings. Slow or janky pages lose ground.
• HTTPS. A valid SSL certificate is a baseline expectation; browsers flag sites without one as "not secure".
• Mobile-friendliness. Google indexes the mobile version of your site first, so it must be responsive and comfortable to use on a phone.

Can search engines understand the page?

Once a page is reachable and fast, help engines and AI make sense of it.

• Title tags and meta descriptions. Each page needs a unique, descriptive <title> and meta description — these become your search-result snippet.
• Heading structure. One clear <h1> per page and a logical <h2>/<h3> outline help both readers and crawlers follow the content.
• Structured data (schema.org / JSON-LD). Marking up articles, products, FAQs and breadcrumbs can earn rich results and helps engines understand what a page is about.
• Image alt text. Descriptive alt attributes make images accessible and eligible for image search.
• Social preview tags. Open Graph tags (and a favicon) control how your links look when shared and in browser tabs — small polish that affects click-through.
• llms.txt. As AI answer engines grow, an llms.txt file helps them understand and cite your site.

How do I check all this?

You don't need to audit by hand. Google Search Console reports indexing and Core Web Vitals for your live site, and viewing a page's source (or DevTools) shows its canonical, title, meta and structured data in seconds. The point of this list is knowing what to look for — most sites have two or three of these quietly wrong at any time.

(On ShiftPress sites, the fundamentals here — canonical tags, a clean sitemap, fast static pages, HTTPS and consistent redirects — are generated correctly by default, so most of this checklist is handled for you.)

Frequently asked questions