A technical SEO audit is a systematic analysis of the technical aspects of a website that directly affect search engine visibility — examining how search engines crawl, index, and rank your pages, and identifying every issue silently suppressing organic performance.
Technical SEO AuditThat Actually Fixes Things.
Twelve audit areas. A prioritised fix list. A 60-minute walkthrough. You leave knowing exactly what to fix and in what order — not with a 300-row spreadsheet that takes longer to read than it did to build.
- Full site crawl and crawl budget analysis
- Core Web Vitals: LCP, CLS, INP diagnostics
- Internal linking and site architecture audit
- Structured data and schema markup review
- XML sitemap and robots.txt audit
- Mobile usability and mobile-first indexing check
- Google Search Console data review
- AI crawler accessibility check
- Prioritised fix list with impact ratings
- 60-minute video walkthrough call
Your site might be invisible to search engines — and you'd never know it.
Most sites have more technical issues than their owners realise. Broken internal links that waste crawl budget. Redirect chains that bleed link equity. Orphaned pages that search engine bots never reach. Duplicate content that confuses search engines into ranking the wrong URL. Structured data issues blocking rich results. Core Web Vitals failures suppressing rankings on mobile devices.
In 2026, a thorough technical SEO audit also covers AI search readiness — checking whether AI crawlers can access your site, whether your structured data is citation-ready, and whether key pages are formatted for AI Overview inclusion.
My audit covers all of this. Every issue is documented, explained in plain English, and ranked by impact. You get clarity on what to fix first — not a spreadsheet to hand off to a developer who'll ask you what it means.
Technical hygiene directly affects how your site performs in AI-generated answers and AI Overviews — not just traditional organic rankings.
- LCP under 2.5 seconds — slow pages are deprioritised by both Google and AI crawlers
- CLS below 0.1 — layout instability reduces content trust signals
- INP under 200ms — interaction responsiveness is now a direct ranking signal
- AI crawlers like GPTBot must not be blocked in robots.txt — required for AI search visibility
- Mobile version parity with desktop is essential with Google's mobile-first indexing in 2026
What a technical SEO audit actually looks like
I walk through every section of the audit in this short video — what tools I use, how I prioritise issues, what the deliverable looks like, and how the walkthrough call works.
Most of the sites I audit have at least one critical issue affecting crawl budget or search engine visibility before we even start. The video shows you how I find and present them.
Every technical aspect of your site. Audited.
Twelve distinct audit areas delivered in a single structured report with a clear prioritisation framework.
Full site crawl using Screaming Frog to identify crawl errors, blocked URLs, broken pages, and indexation issues. XML sitemap validated against indexable 200 OK pages only. robots.txt reviewed to prevent search engines from being blocked from key pages.
Crawl budget · XML sitemap · robots.txtPage speed is a confirmed ranking factor. LCP, CLS, and INP scores analysed across key pages using PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse. Specific elements causing performance failures identified on both desktop and mobile devices.
LCP · CLS · INP · load speedGood website architecture means important pages are reachable within three clicks of the homepage. I audit your URL structure, page hierarchy, URL parameters, and navigation depth — and surface orphaned pages that search engine bots can't reach.
Site structure · orphaned pages · URL parametersInternal links distribute link equity and signal importance to search engines. I identify broken internal links, pages with too many internal links diluting authority, and structural gaps preventing crawlers from reaching key pages.
Link equity · broken internal links · anchor textStructured data helps search engines understand your content and can unlock rich results. Schema markup validated using Google's Rich Results Test. Article, Product, FAQ, and Organisation schema issues identified and documented.
Schema markup · rich snippets · JSON-LDGoogle uses mobile-first indexing. If your mobile version lags behind desktop, your SEO rankings suffer regardless of how strong the desktop experience is. I audit mobile performance, usability issues, and mobile-desktop content parity.
Mobile-first indexing · mobile performance · usabilityRedirect chains bleed link equity and slow crawlers. I audit all redirect paths across your site, identify chains and loops, and flag broken canonical tags causing search engines to rank incorrect pages or create duplicate content issues.
Redirect chains · canonical tags · 404 errorsI review your Google Search Console data to identify coverage errors, manual actions, crawl anomalies, and performance drops that point to technical root causes. This adds real-world signal that pure crawl tools miss.
Search Console · coverage errors · performance dataIn 2026, your robots.txt must allow access to AI crawlers to maintain AI search visibility. I check GPTBot, Google-Extended, and other AI crawler permissions, and assess whether structured data and content format meet technical requirements for AI Overview inclusion.
AI crawlers · AI Overview · GPTBotHTTPS is a confirmed ranking signal. I check for mixed content issues, insecure resource loading, and multiple URL versions of the same domain that fragment authority and confuse search engines about your canonical site address.
HTTPS · mixed content · URL canonicalisationDuplicate, missing, or truncated meta titles and meta descriptions suppress click-through rates. I audit meta tags across all key pages and flag issues at scale — including JavaScript-rendered pages where meta tags are often missing entirely.
Meta tags · meta descriptions · duplicate contentEvery issue is categorised as critical, high, medium, or low based on SEO impact, urgency, and implementation complexity. Critical issues are flagged first with affected URLs included.
Impact ratings · implementation guide · developer briefsReady to find out what's holding your site back?
Fixed price. 7–10 days. Money-back guarantee. Split payment available.
Four steps from booking to fix list.
Book and brief
You book the audit and complete a short briefing form covering your business goals, known technical concerns, and target pages. Understanding your context is essential for prioritising fixes correctly — a crawl budget issue on an ecommerce site with programmatic SEO is different to one on a B2B blog.
Day 1Access and crawl
You grant read-only access to Google Search Console. I run a full site crawl, pull Search Console data, and begin the audit across all twelve areas. For more complex websites, log file analysis provides an additional signal layer about how search engine bots are actually interacting with the site.
Days 1–5Audit and prioritise
Every finding is documented, explained, and rated by impact. Critical issues — mixed content, AI crawlers being blocked, broken canonical tags, incorrect pages being indexed — are flagged separately. Every issue includes affected URLs so your developers can act immediately without ambiguity.
Days 5–9Walkthrough call
A 60-minute video call walking through every section of the audit, the prioritised fix list, and your questions. The recording is yours to share with your development team. If you need ongoing technical maintenance, I can scope the Full-Stack SEO and AI Visibility Retainer at this stage.
Day 10Results from clients I work with across SEO and content
Results vary by site, sector, and baseline.
What clients say.
"Graeme is a fantastic content strategy partner who has helped Originality continue to grow into one of the industry-leading AI detection software tools, with excellent exposure across Google, LLMs, and Socials."
"Graeme is a rare breed of content marketing consultant who truly understands content strategy, SEO, and how to successfully incorporate AI into a brilliant content marketing strategy."
The sites that benefit most from a technical audit.
You're producing content, building links, doing the right things — but rankings won't move. A technical SEO audit typically uncovers crawl budget waste, duplicate content, or structural issues killing the impact of your SEO efforts.
Site migrations break things. Redirect chains accumulate, canonical tags go missing, Search Console fills with coverage errors. A post-migration technical audit catches these before they compound and suppress rankings for months.
Ecommerce sites with large product catalogues, faceted navigation, and URL parameters face unique crawl budget and duplicate content challenges. Programmatic SEO builds need architectural rigour or they create as many problems as they solve.
Before you invest in content production, link building, or a retainer, you need to know your technical foundation is sound. A technical audit at the start of an SEO strategy prevents you from building on broken architecture.
Sudden drops in search visibility often have a technical root cause — pages accidentally set to noindex, a robots.txt change blocking key sections, a Core Web Vitals regression after a site update. I find it.
If AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity aren't surfacing your content, technical barriers are often part of the reason. This audit checks AI crawler access, structured data quality, and the page-level technical signals that affect AI citation eligibility.
I've grown sites from zero to millions of organic visits across SaaS, fintech, fitness, and e-commerce.
I'm Graeme Whiles, a senior SEO and AEO consultant. My audits are built on actual site crawls, Search Console data, and real-world performance analysis — not automated reports from SaaS tools with an AI summary bolted on top.
I don't outsource audit work. Every finding is reviewed and contextualised by me personally. The fix list is written for your site, not generated from a template.
Read my full audit methodology →This is a diagnostic service, not an implementation service.
The audit identifies and prioritises every technical issue found. Implementation requires your web developers — I provide them with a clean, structured fix list with affected URLs for each issue. If you need hands-on technical maintenance as well as the audit, the Full-Stack SEO and AI Visibility Retainer covers this as an ongoing workstream.
See the Full-Stack Retainer →Common questions about the audit.
Find out exactly what's stopping your site from ranking. Fix it.
Fixed price. Money-back guarantee. 7–10 day delivery. Split payment available.
Agency equivalents typically cost £2,000–£5,000. Split into 2 × £399 available on request.