A technical SEO audit checklist for small business websites

Before you start: tools and a baseline

A small business does not need an expensive platform to audit its own site. Most problems on a site of a few hundred pages show up with a handful of tools, used in a sensible order.

• Google Search Console: the only first-hand view of how Google sees the site. Verify the domain property so it covers every subdomain and both http and https.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: worth adding, since Bing’s index also feeds other search and AI products. It can import your Search Console setup.
• A desktop crawler: Screaming Frog’s free version crawls up to 500 URLs, which covers many small business sites. Sitebulb is a paid alternative.
• PageSpeed Insights: shows both field data from real Chrome users and a lab test for a single page.

Before changing anything, export the Search Console performance data for the last 16 months and note how many pages are indexed. Without a baseline you cannot tell later whether a fix worked or a redesign broke something.

Can search engines reach every page?

Crawlability is the base of everything else. If a page cannot be fetched, nothing about its content matters.

1. robots.txt: open yoursite.dk/robots.txt and read it. Look for a leftover Disallow: / from a staging site, a very common mistake after a launch. Make sure it does not block CSS or JavaScript files that are needed to render pages.
2. XML sitemap: it should list only canonical, indexable pages that return a 200 status, and it should be submitted in Search Console. A sitemap full of redirects and 404s teaches crawlers to trust it less.
3. Status codes: crawl the site and sort by status. Fix internal links that point to 404 pages, and replace links to redirected URLs with the final address.
4. Redirect chains: one hop is fine; three hops after two redesigns is not. Point old URLs straight at the current page with a 301.
5. Orphan pages: compare the sitemap with the crawl. Pages that exist in the sitemap but receive no internal links are hard for search engines and visitors to find.

Danish characters deserve a quick check too. URLs containing æ, ø and å work, but they are often encoded inconsistently between the CMS, the sitemap and old links. Many sites simply transliterate them (ae, oe, aa) in slugs to avoid the problem.

Indexing, duplicates and canonical tags

Being crawled is not the same as being indexed. The Page indexing report in Search Console lists every reason Google gives for leaving a URL out, and it is the most useful single screen in a technical audit.

• Excluded by noindex: check that every page listed is meant to be hidden. Templates and plugins sometimes apply noindex more widely than intended.
• Duplicate without user-selected canonical: usually caused by URL parameters, filter pages in a shop, or the same page reachable with and without a trailing slash.
• Crawled, currently not indexed: often a sign that Google considers the page thin or too similar to others. This is a content problem with a technical symptom.
• Canonical tags: every indexable page should carry a self-referencing canonical, and no page should point its canonical at a URL that redirects or is blocked.

Use the URL Inspection tool for key pages, such as the home page, main service pages and top sellers, to confirm Google has indexed them and to see the rendered HTML it worked from.

Speed, Core Web Vitals and mobile rendering

Google has used mobile-first indexing for all sites for some years, so the mobile version of each page is the one that counts. Open key pages on a real phone as well as in a browser emulator and check that menus, forms and any tabbed content are present and usable.

Core Web Vitals are Google’s three field measures of page experience. A page passes when at least 75 percent of real visits meet each threshold:

INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024, so older audits may report the wrong metric. Low-traffic sites often have no field data at all, in which case use lab results as a guide but do not treat a single score as a verdict. The usual culprits on small sites are oversized hero images, heavy page builders, too many third-party scripts and cookie banners that shift the layout. Our Core Web Vitals work goes through these one at a time.

Internal links, languages and structured data

Once pages can be found and indexed, the audit moves to how well the site explains itself.

Internal links and depth

Important pages should be reachable within three clicks of the home page and linked from relevant text, not only from the menu. Check that anchor text describes the destination (“wedding photography packages”, not “read more”).

Danish and English versions

If the site has both languages, each page should declare its alternatives with hreflang tags, for example da-DK and en, plus an x-default. The tags must be reciprocal: if the Danish page points to the English one, the English page must point back. Missing or one-way tags are a common reason an English page ranks in Danish results or the reverse. Set the correct lang attribute on the html element as well.

HTTPS and the small things that break quietly

Every page should load over https, and the http version, the www version and the bare domain should all redirect in one step to a single preferred address. Check for mixed content warnings, where an https page still pulls an image or script over http, and for an expiring certificate on any subdomain such as a booking or shop system. Look at the custom 404 page too: it should return a real 404 status rather than a 200, and it should help the visitor find the way back with links to the main sections. These are small items, but they are the ones nobody notices until rankings or trust have already slipped.

Structured data and titles

• Validate Organization or LocalBusiness markup with Google’s Rich Results Test and make sure it matches the visible page.
• Look for missing, duplicated or truncated title tags and meta descriptions in the crawl export.
• Check that each page has one clear h1 and that images carry meaningful alt text.

Turning findings into a prioritised fix list

Every crawler produces a long list of warnings, and many of them do not matter. The skill in an audit is ranking the findings by impact and effort, then fixing the few that block revenue pages first.

1. Blockers: anything that stops key pages being crawled or indexed. Fix immediately.
2. Leaks: broken internal links, redirect chains, duplicate pages competing with each other. Fix in the next sprint.
3. Improvements: speed, structured data, internal linking. Plan them in.
4. Cosmetic warnings: missing alt text on decorative images, minor title length issues. Batch them.

Write each item as a task a developer can act on, with the URL, the problem, the fix and how to check it worked. Re-crawl after the fixes and compare with the baseline. For a full technical SEO audit we deliver the list in exactly that form, and a small site is usually worth checking again after any redesign, migration or CMS change. Many of the leaks in the second group come back slowly as pages are added and removed, which is why ongoing website maintenance and a short crawl every few months save a bigger clean-up later.