Technical SEO Audit: What We Look For (And Fix First)

Most B2B sites have technical debt that blocks rankings before a single keyword is optimized. Crawl errors, slow pages, broken structure — search engines cannot rank what they cannot understand or reach. Here is what we fix first.

Content cannot rescue a page Google never fetches or refuses to index.

Audit in this order: can it be crawled, is it the URL you meant, is it fast enough to keep, then is the markup clear. Technical SEO foundations is the install guide. This is the audit sequence.

1. Crawlability

Start in Search Console → Indexing → Pages and a full-site crawl (Screaming Frog or Sitebulb).

• Robots.txt. Are /services/, /industries/, or the blog disallowed? Is CSS/JS blocked? Is the sitemap referenced? A stray Disallow: / from staging is still the most expensive typo in SEO.
• Indexation. Accidental noindex on templates (pagination, resources, the whole site via a plugin). Thin or duplicate URLs eating the index. Statuses to sort first: excluded by noindex, crawled not indexed, discovered not indexed, soft 404.
• URL structure. One host, one protocol, one slash rule. No session IDs. Parameters that do not change content should not be indexable.
• Sitemap. Canonical 200 URLs only. No redirects, 404s, or noindex. Submitted in Search Console.

If Google cannot crawl it, it will not rank it. Fix discovery before you rewrite copy.

On Forzabuilt’s WordPress-to-Astro catalog move, the audit was not optional: layered redirects, clean canonicals, Product and FAQ schema, and a sitemap that matched the new IA. Post-remediation technical SEO health hit 99%. That is what “fix crawl first” looks like on a 200+ SKU site.

2. Site speed

Field data beats lab scores. Use Search Console Core Web Vitals (CrUX) plus a sample of commercial URLs in PageSpeed Insights.

• Core Web Vitals. LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Failures cluster on hero images, third-party scripts, and layout shifts from late fonts or injected banners.
• Server response. TTFB under ~600ms. Slow origin makes every other metric worse and shrinks crawl capacity on large catalogs.
• Render-blocking. CSS and JS that delay first paint. Critical CSS, defer non-critical JS, and stop loading chat and tag managers before content.

Speed is a ranking factor. It is also a conversion factor. Technical buyers bounce when pages lag — especially on mobile product or service pages.

Forzabuilt’s media-heavy catalog held a 99% Lighthouse desktop score after the Astro rebuild. That is the template bar, not a brochure theme with a 4MB hero. If field LCP fails on quote templates, stop publishing and fix the layout.

3. Structure and schema

• Heading hierarchy. One H1 that matches intent. H2/H3 in reading order. Skip “visual” headings that are styled divs with no outline.
• Canonicals. Every indexable page has one canonical. Self-referencing when the page is unique. Exact match to the preferred URL. Conflicts with noindex or sitemap entries show up fast.
• Structured data. Organization on the homepage, Service on offer pages, BreadcrumbList on interior pages, Article on the blog. Validate in Rich Results Test. Implementation notes: schema for B2B.
• Internal links. Money pages need contextual inlinks, not just the header. Orphans belong in the crawl report. See internal linking.
• HTTPS and redirects. One hop to HTTPS. No mixed content that breaks JS on mobile.

Structure helps search engines understand your content and surface it in rich results. It also keeps humans from getting lost in a 200-page service architecture.

4. Mobile and UX

Google uses mobile-first indexing. The smartphone crawl is the one that counts.

• Parity. Same primary content, titles, and links on mobile as desktop. Hidden desktop-only copy is not in the index you think you have.
• Touch targets. Forms, nav, and CTAs usable without pinch-zoom. If RFQ or contact fails on a phone, you lose the buyer who researched on one.
• Viewport and fonts. Correct viewport meta. Body text readable without zoom.

B2B buyers research on mobile even when they convert on desktop. If your site fails there, you lose them before the proposal.

Fix order

1. Blockers: robots, noindex, HTTPS, 5xx, broken canonicals.
2. Index waste: duplicates, parameters, soft 404s, sitemap cleanup.
3. Speed on templates that earn traffic (home, services, top industry pages).
4. Schema and headings on those same templates.
5. Mobile form and nav fixes.

Recrawl after each batch. Request indexing on the commercial URLs you repaired.

Coverage and Vitals usually move in 2–4 weeks, not overnight.

We run technical audits with prioritized fix lists. See SEO and search growth or start a project.