Technical SEO Checklist for 2026: 20 Checks for a Healthy Website

Great content can't rank if search engines struggle to crawl or understand your site. Use this technical SEO checklist to find and fix the problems that hold websites back.

Crawling and indexing

1. Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. Submit an XML sitemap with only indexable pages.
3. Check robots.txt isn't blocking important pages.
4. Make sure important pages don't have noindex tags.
5. Review the Pages report for excluded or erroneous URLs.

URLs and duplicates

1. Use HTTPS everywhere and redirect HTTP.
2. Pick one version (www or non-www) and redirect the other.
3. Add canonical tags to every page.
4. Use 301 redirects for moved pages.
5. Return a real 404 for missing pages.

Speed and experience

1. Pass Core Web Vitals on mobile.
2. Compress images and set dimensions.
3. Minimise render-blocking scripts.
4. Make the site fully responsive.

Understanding your content

1. One H1 per page and a logical heading structure.
2. Unique titles and meta descriptions.
3. Structured data (Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, Article, FAQ) that matches visible content.
4. Descriptive alt text on images.

Links and architecture

1. Fix broken internal links.
2. Ensure important pages are reachable within a few clicks and linked internally.

Keep checking

Technical SEO isn't one-off — check Search Console monthly. Our SEO services include technical audits, and every website we build ships with these basics done.

Next step

Want a technical audit? Book a free audit.