A practical technical SEO checklist

1. Start with the pages that matter

Make a list of the pages you want people to discover: your homepage, service pages, important products, and useful articles. Include an example from each page template. A problem in a shared template can affect many URLs at once.

Use the SEO Analyzer to inspect public pages from a sitemap or crawl. It uses a network proxy to fetch URLs, so use public website addresses. A crawl is a snapshot: a clean report does not prove that a search engine has indexed a page.

• Record the URL, intended purpose, and whether the page should be indexed.
• Review redirects and error responses before spending time on titles.
• Use Search Console URL Inspection when you need Google's reported indexing state.

2. Separate crawling from indexing

Check robots.txt for accidental restrictions, and test a few important URLs with the Robots.txt & Sitemap Validator. A robots.txt rule controls crawling; it is not a reliable way to remove a URL from search results.

If a page must be excluded from search, check its noindex directive and make sure a crawler can access that directive. If the content is private, protect it with authentication rather than relying on search settings.

3. Review the HTML head and page content

Check that each indexable page has a useful title, a sensible canonical URL, and content that matches the page's purpose. Paste the HTML head into the Head Tag Auditor to spot missing or conflicting tags.

Check the deployed HTML as well as the code in your editor. Templates, plugins, and client-side rendering can change what is delivered. A canonical is a preference signal; it does not guarantee which URL a search engine will select.

• Keep canonical targets reachable and consistent with internal links.
• Look for accidental noindex directives left over from staging.
• Use descriptive headings that help readers navigate the page.

4. Add structured data that reflects the page

Use the Schema Generator only for content actually present on the page. Choose a supported type and replace every example value with a real value before publishing.

Check the output with Google's Rich Results Test for supported search features. Valid JSON alone does not establish eligibility, and correct markup does not guarantee a rich result. Do not invent reviews or ratings.

5. Verify the changes after publishing

Generate a sitemap containing the canonical URLs you want crawled. Submit it in Search Console, then monitor processing and indexing reports over time. Submission is a discovery hint, not an indexing guarantee.

Finally, test important pages on a phone. Check loading, readable text, image sizes, and whether the main task is easy to complete. Use PageSpeed Insights for performance measurements; an HTML audit by itself cannot measure real user experience.

• Recheck changed URLs and one unaffected page after a release.
• Keep a dated record of problems, fixes, and follow-up checks.
• Compare search performance over appropriate periods instead of expecting immediate ranking changes.