A technical SEO checklist for a site that already has content
Content problems get the attention; technical problems set the ceiling. Work through this list before commissioning more articles.
Crawl and index
Check that the XML sitemap contains only indexable URLs and that every page you care about returns 200 without a redirect chain. Look for accidental noindex tags, which are the most common cause of a sudden traffic drop after a release.
Rendering
Confirm that primary content exists in the initial HTML rather than arriving after a client-side fetch. Use the URL inspection tool to see what a crawler actually received, not what your browser rendered.
Structure and duplicates
One canonical URL per page, consistent trailing slashes, no parameter duplicates indexed, and internal links that point to the canonical version. Then check the redirect map for chains longer than one hop.
Common questions
- How often should a technical audit run?
- Quarterly for a stable site, and immediately after any migration, redesign or platform change.
- Do sitemaps improve rankings?
- They speed up discovery rather than improve rankings. Keep them accurate, small and free of redirects or noindexed URLs.
Next step
If this question is live in your business right now, describe the situation and you will get a written view on the options, including whether you should build at all.
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