A practical technical SEO checklist

Technical SEO is the foundation everything else sits on. You can write the best content on the internet, but if crawlers cannot reach it or the page takes eight seconds to load, none of it matters. Here is what to check, in the order that pays off fastest.

Crawlability and indexing

Start here. If a page cannot be crawled or is set to noindex, no other optimization counts.

• Confirm important pages are not blocked in robots.txt.
• Check for stray noindex tags in meta robots or the X-Robots-Tag header.
• Publish an XML sitemap and reference it in robots.txt.
• Make sure every page has a self-referencing canonical tag.

HTTPS and security

HTTPS is a baseline ranking signal and a trust signal for users. Serve everything over HTTPS and redirect HTTP traffic with a 301.

Core Web Vitals

Speed is a ranking factor and a conversion factor. Focus on the three Core Web Vitals.

• LCP under 2.5 seconds: optimize your largest image or hero element.
• CLS under 0.1: set width and height on images and reserve space for ads.
• INP under 200ms: cut heavy JavaScript that blocks interaction.

Mobile readiness

Google indexes the mobile version of your site. A missing viewport meta tag or a layout that breaks on small screens will cost you.

On-page structure

Clean structure helps both search engines and AI engines parse your page.

1. One H1 per page that describes the topic.
2. A logical heading hierarchy: H2 for sections, H3 for sub-points.
3. Descriptive alt text on meaningful images.
4. Internal links to related pages with clear anchor text.

Fix crawlability first, speed second, structure third. That order rarely changes.

SEO Pine checks every item on this list automatically and scores it. Run a free audit to see where your site stands.