What to fix first in a technical SEO check
SEO · 2 min read · Updated 29 Sept 2026
A technical SEO check can produce a very long list. Most of it is minor. A handful of issues decide whether your pages can be found at all, so those come first.
1. Can Google reach and index your pages?
- Open Google Search Console and look at which pages are indexed and which are excluded.
- Check that your robots.txt file is not blocking important pages.
- Submit an XML sitemap so new pages are found quickly.
2. Is the site fast and usable on mobile?
Google mostly looks at the mobile version of your site. Large uncompressed images, heavy scripts and layouts that jump around while loading are the usual causes of a slow page. Compressing images and removing unused plugins often helps more than anything advanced.
Compressing images and removing unused plugins often helps more than anything advanced.
3. Does every page have a clear title and heading?
Each page should have a unique title tag that says what the page is about, and one main heading that matches it. Duplicate or empty titles make it harder for search engines, and for people, to tell your pages apart.
4. Are there broken links or redirect chains?
Broken links waste visitors' time, and long chains of redirects slow pages down. Fix links that lead to error pages, and point old addresses straight to their final destination.
Once these are healthy, better content and stronger local signals will make more difference than further technical tweaking.
Put it into practice.
The problem
The site has good content, but Google is slow to find, index or trust some pages.
Step 1
Open Search Console and read the pages report for errors and exclusions
Step 2
Fix slow pages, broken links and duplicate titles first
Step 3
Add a sitemap and check that important pages can be crawled
The plan
The plan: remove the technical blockers first, so content work has something solid to stand on.
An example of how we would think about it, not a client result. Want the same for your business? Ask for a free audit →
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