Doing a technical SEO audit for your website

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If you run a business, you’ve probably heard about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and how important it is for getting your website found on Google. But there’s one part of SEO that often gets overlooked — Technical SEO.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is a sub-category of SEO that focuses on the technical side of your website — things like sitemaps, website speed, link structure, and more. Think of it like the foundation and plumbing of a house — visitors may not see it directly, but it’s crucial to making sure everything works smoothly.

It’s a pretty large topic, so we can’t cover absolutely everything in this blog, but we’ll walk you through some easy wins you can focus on to improve your website’s technical SEO health.

Why Technical SEO Matters

Even if you have fantastic content, a slow, broken, or poorly structured website can hold you back from ranking well on Google. Technical SEO ensures search engines can find, understand, and properly rank your website — plus it improves the experience for your customers.

Website Speed & Performance

If your website takes too long to load, it can hurt both your SEO rankings and your visitor experience. Google wants to send searchers to fast, user-friendly sites — so speed matters.

What Slows a Website Down?

• Web Hosting: If your hosting server is slow, your site will be too.
• Large Images: Oversized images are one of the biggest culprits for slow loading times.
• Lack of Caching: Caching saves a copy of your pages so they load faster for returning visitors.

How to Fix It

• Use free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to check your speed.
• Compress images using tools like TinyPNG or ShortPixel.
• Enable caching — if you’re using WordPress, plugins like LiteSpeed Cache, WP Optimize, W3 Total Cache, or WP Fastest Cache can help.

Mobile-Friendliness

More than half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, so your website needs to work well on phones and tablets, not just desktops. Google even ranks websites based on their mobile version first.

Easy Wins

• Test your site on your own phone — is the text easy to read? Do buttons work?
• Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to spot problems.
• Choose a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes.

Keep Your URLs Short and Clear

What’s a URL?

A URL is your website address — like www.yourbusiness.com. Each page on your website has its own URL, like:

• www.yourbusiness.com/contact
• www.yourbusiness.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-seo

Why URL Length Matters

Google can understand shorter, clearer URLs more easily, and they’re more user-friendly for visitors too. While Google can technically handle long URLs, shorter ones have a better chance of performing well.

Pro Tip

• Keep URLs short and descriptive.
• Use words that describe the page (not random strings of letters and numbers).
• Avoid unnecessary words like “and” or “the” in URLs.
• Example: www.yourbusiness.com/car-repair-services is better than www.yourbusiness.com/category/section/car-repair-services-for-all-vehicles.