The Problem
You're publishing great content, but Google isn't ranking it. Your traffic is flat. Your competitors with worse content are outranking you. The issue isn't your content—it's your technical foundation. Google can't properly crawl, index, or understand your site, so it's not showing your pages in search results.
Technical SEO is invisible until it's broken. Most sites have issues they don't even know about: slow load times, broken internal links, missing schema markup, duplicate content. These are silent killers—they don't throw errors, but they quietly destroy your rankings.
This audit framework identifies the 10 most common technical SEO issues and tells you exactly how to fix them. We've used it to recover traffic for dozens of sites. In one case, fixing these issues increased organic traffic by 180% in three months—without publishing a single new piece of content.
The 10 Issues
1. Slow Core Web Vitals
Google uses Core Web Vitals (page speed, interactivity, visual stability) as ranking factors. If your site is slow, you're losing rankings—and users. A one-second delay in load time reduces conversions by 7%.
How to check: Run your site through PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. Look at LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). You want LCP <2.5s, FID <100ms, CLS <0.1.
How to fix: Compress images (use WebP format), minify CSS/JS, enable lazy loading, use a CDN, and eliminate render-blocking resources. If you're on WordPress, use a caching plugin like WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache.
2. Broken Internal Links
Broken links waste crawl budget, create dead ends, and signal neglect to Google. If your site has hundreds of 404s, Google assumes it's not maintained and ranks it lower.
How to check: Use Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit to crawl your site and identify 404 errors, redirect chains, and orphaned pages.
How to fix: Fix or redirect every broken link. Remove links to 404 pages, consolidate redirect chains (A→B→C becomes A→C), and interlink orphaned pages. Aim for zero 404s on internal links.
3. Poor Crawlability
If Google can't crawl your site efficiently, it won't index all your pages. Sites with deep link hierarchies, orphaned pages, or blocked resources limit Google's ability to discover content.
How to check: Review your crawl stats in Google Search Console (Settings → Crawl Stats). If Google is only crawling 10-20% of your pages per day, you have a crawlability problem.
How to fix: Flatten your site architecture (keep important pages within 3 clicks of the homepage), add internal links to orphaned pages, submit an XML sitemap, and remove unnecessary parameters from URLs.
4. Missing or Incorrect Schema Markup
Schema markup helps Google understand your content—product pages, articles, reviews, FAQs, events. Without it, Google guesses. With it, you get rich snippets (star ratings, pricing, event dates) that increase CTR by 20-40%.
How to check: Use Google's Rich Results Test to see if your pages have schema markup. Check if it's implemented correctly and if Google is reading it.
How to fix: Add schema markup to key pages. For e-commerce, use Product schema. For blogs, use Article schema. For local businesses, use LocalBusiness schema. Use a plugin like Rank Math or Yoast (WordPress) or add JSON-LD code manually.
5. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content confuses Google—it doesn't know which version to rank. Common causes: www vs. non-www, HTTP vs. HTTPS, URL parameters, printer-friendly versions, and syndicated content.
How to check: Run a site audit in Ahrefs or Screaming Frog. Look for pages with identical or near-identical content.
How to fix: Set a canonical URL for every page. Use 301 redirects to consolidate duplicate URLs. Add noindex tags to pages you don't want Google to crawl (admin pages, thank-you pages, filtered search results).
6. Missing XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap tells Google which pages to crawl and how often. Without it, Google might miss new content or waste time crawling unimportant pages.
How to check: Go to yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. If you see a list of URLs, you have a sitemap. Check Google Search Console (Sitemaps section) to see if it's submitted and error-free.
How to fix: Generate a sitemap using a plugin (Yoast, Rank Math) or a tool like Screaming Frog. Submit it to Google Search Console. Update it automatically whenever you publish new content.
7. Poor Mobile Usability
60%+ of searches happen on mobile. If your site isn't mobile-friendly, Google won't rank it. Mobile-first indexing means Google uses the mobile version of your site for ranking, not the desktop version.
How to check: Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test or check the Mobile Usability report in Search Console.
How to fix: Use responsive design, ensure text is readable without zooming, make buttons large enough to tap, avoid horizontal scrolling, and test on real devices (iPhone, Android).
8. Thin or Missing Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions don't directly affect rankings, but they affect CTR—which does affect rankings. A compelling meta description can double your click-through rate from search results.
How to check: Run a site audit in Ahrefs or Screaming Frog. Look for pages with missing, duplicate, or short meta descriptions (<120 characters).
How to fix: Write unique, compelling meta descriptions for every important page. Include your target keyword, a clear benefit, and a call to action. Keep it under 160 characters.
9. No HTTPS / SSL Certificate
HTTPS is a ranking factor. Sites without SSL certificates (HTTP instead of HTTPS) are penalized in rankings and flagged as "Not Secure" in browsers, which kills trust and conversions.
How to check: Look at your URL bar. If it shows a lock icon and starts with "https," you're good. If it shows "Not Secure," you need SSL.
How to fix: Get an SSL certificate from your hosting provider (many offer free SSL via Let's Encrypt). Redirect all HTTP URLs to HTTPS using 301 redirects. Update internal links to use HTTPS.
10. Blocked Resources in Robots.txt
If important resources (CSS, JS, images) are blocked in your robots.txt file, Google can't render your pages properly. This can prevent indexing or cause Google to misinterpret your content.
How to check: Go to yoursite.com/robots.txt and review what's disallowed. Check the Coverage report in Google Search Console for "Blocked by robots.txt" errors.
How to fix: Unblock any resources Google needs to render your pages. Keep robots.txt minimal—only block admin pages, thank-you pages, and truly private content.
Implementation
Start with a full site audit using Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Semrush. These tools will surface most of the issues above in one report. Export the errors and prioritize based on impact.
Fix the highest-impact issues first: Core Web Vitals, broken links, missing schema, and duplicate content. These have the biggest effect on rankings. Then tackle the lower-impact issues.
Monitor your progress in Google Search Console. Watch your impressions, clicks, and average position over time. Technical SEO fixes can take 2-8 weeks to fully impact rankings, so be patient.
Run quarterly audits. Technical SEO isn't a one-time fix—sites drift over time. New pages create new issues. Plugins break. Content gets duplicated. Regular audits keep your foundation solid.
Results
One client came to us with a site that was hemorrhaging traffic. Organic visits had dropped 60% in six months, and they didn't know why. The content was good. The links were solid. The issue was technical.
We ran an audit and found: 800+ broken internal links, no schema markup, slow Core Web Vitals (LCP 4.5s), and a robots.txt file blocking critical CSS files. Google couldn't properly crawl, index, or render the site.
We fixed everything in three weeks. Within two months, organic traffic was back to previous levels. Within three months, it was up 180%—higher than it had ever been. No new content. No new links. Just fixing the foundation.
Technical SEO isn't glamorous, but it's the difference between a site that ranks and one that doesn't. Fix these 10 issues, and you'll unlock traffic you didn't know you were losing.