Technical SEO audit and fixes for small business websites

What is a technical SEO audit?

A technical SEO audit checks whether search engines can find, read and understand your website. Think of it as a home inspection rather than a paint job. Content and links are the paint and furniture; technical SEO is the wiring and plumbing. If the wiring is faulty, it does not matter how nice the sofa is.

Our technical SEO audit and fixes service has two parts. First, we crawl your site and review your Google Search Console data, then give you a prioritized fix list written in plain English. Second, once you approve a fixed-price quote, we implement the fixes ourselves and check that Google picks them up.

It suits small and mid-sized businesses whose site has been live for a while, has gone through a redesign or platform move, or simply is not showing up in Google the way it should.

What does a technical SEO audit check?

Crawling and indexing

We check your robots.txt file, meta robots tags, XML sitemaps and canonical tags. A surprisingly common mistake is a site launched with the "discourage search engines" setting still switched on, which quietly adds noindex to every page. Another is a robots.txt rule copied from a staging site that blocks the whole store.

Why it matters: if Google cannot crawl a page, or is told not to index it, that page cannot rank for anything, no matter how good it is.

Core Web Vitals, explained simply

Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how a page feels to real visitors:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): how long until the main content, usually the big image or headline, appears. Google calls 2.5 seconds or less "good".
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): how quickly the page responds when someone taps a button or opens a menu. "Good" is 200 milliseconds or less.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): how much the page jumps around while loading. You know the moment: you go to tap "Menu" and hit an ad instead. "Good" is 0.1 or less.

Why it matters: page experience is one of many ranking signals, and it is rarely the deciding one on its own. But slow, jumpy pages lose visitors before they ever read your offer, so fixing them helps people and search engines at the same time.

Mobile usability

Google mainly uses the mobile version of your site for indexing. We check tap targets, text size, pop-ups that cover content, and whether anything important is hidden or missing on phones.

Why it matters: if your mobile pages show less content than your desktop pages, Google may simply never see the missing parts.

Site structure and internal links

We map how your pages link to each other. Important pages should be reachable in a few clicks from the home page, with descriptive link text. We look for orphan pages (pages nothing links to) and deep pages buried under layers of menus.

Why it matters: internal links tell Google which pages you consider important and help it discover new ones. They also help visitors find what they came for.

Structured data

Structured data (schema markup) is a small block of code that labels things on a page: this is a business, this is its address, this is a product with a price. We check what you have, fix errors, and add what fits, such as Organization, LocalBusiness, Product, Article or Breadcrumb markup.

Why it matters: it helps search engines understand your pages and can make them eligible for richer search results. Eligibility is not a promise; Google decides what to show.

Redirects, 404s and duplicate content

We find broken links, redirect chains (A to B to C), redirect loops, and old URLs from a previous site that now go nowhere. We also look for duplicate versions of the same page, such as with and without "www", trailing slashes, or tracking parameters.

Why it matters: broken paths waste visitors' patience and any links other sites have given you. Duplicates split signals between several URLs instead of concentrating them on one.

HTTPS and security basics

We confirm every page loads over HTTPS, that the HTTP version redirects cleanly, and that there is no "mixed content" (insecure images or scripts on secure pages).

Why it matters: browsers warn visitors about insecure pages, and few people fill in a contact form after a warning.

Google Search Console setup

If Search Console is not set up, we set it up in your name, verify your domain, and submit your sitemap. If it is set up, we read its indexing and experience reports as part of the audit.

Why it matters: Search Console is the only place Google tells you directly which pages it has indexed, which it has skipped, and why.

How the audit and fixes work

1. Access and crawl. You give us read access to Search Console and, if you have it, Google Analytics. We crawl your site with professional crawling tools.
2. Prioritized fix list. You get a written report that ranks issues by likely impact and effort. Each item says what is wrong, why it matters, and how we propose to fix it. No 80-page export of tool warnings.
3. Fixed-price quote. We quote the implementation before any work starts. You can approve all of it, part of it, or hand the list to your own developer.
4. Implementation. We make the fixes on your site, staging first where your setup allows it. You get weekly written updates while work is in progress.
5. Check and hand-over. We request re-indexing where useful, confirm the fixes in Search Console, and send a short summary of everything changed.

You keep ownership of every account, file and login throughout. We work inside your accounts, not ours.

Can you guarantee better rankings?

No, and neither can any honest agency. Google uses many signals, changes them regularly, and does not publish exactly how they are weighted. Technical fixes remove barriers; they do not force Google to rank you higher.

What we do guarantee is the work itself: the issues in the agreed scope get fixed, at the agreed price, with a written record of every change. Most technical fixes are noticed by Google within days to a few weeks, depending on how often it crawls your site, while any ranking changes that follow tend to take longer.

How much does technical SEO cost?

Technical SEO audits and fixes start from $600. The final fixed price depends on:

• Site size. A 20-page service site is quicker to audit than a store with thousands of URLs.
• Platform. WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and custom builds each have their own quirks and limits.
• Number and depth of issues. Fixing a sitemap is quick. Untangling a botched migration with hundreds of broken URLs is not.
• Speed work. Core Web Vitals fixes can mean image changes, or they can mean replacing a heavy theme or app.

You see the full price before we start. See pricing for how our quotes work.

Who is this not a good fit for?

• Brand-new sites with a handful of pages. You probably need good content and a local SEO setup more than a deep technical audit.
• Anyone wanting a quick ranking boost. Technical SEO is a foundation, not a shortcut.
• Sites due for a full rebuild soon. If the site is being replaced in the next few months, we would rather build the new one correctly. Our website design service covers that.
• Owners who cannot give any access. We need at least Search Console access to do a proper job.

How technical SEO connects with our other services

Technical fixes work best alongside good content and steady upkeep. Online stores usually move on to e-commerce SEO for product and collection pages. Service businesses that rely on nearby customers often pair this with local SEO. And to stop new problems creeping back in after updates, website care and hosting keeps an eye on things month to month.

Not sure where to begin? Start with a free growth audit. We will look at your site and tell you, in two business days, whether a technical audit is the right next step.