An audit is worth running for any site owner: it surfaces problems that are invisible from a browser but directly affect how the site performs in search.
What a technical SEO audit is
A technical SEO audit is a check of the errors that stop search engines crawling, indexing and ranking a site properly. It is the baseline step of any SEO campaign: while technical barriers remain in place, work on content and links delivers less than it should.
During a technical audit we assess:
- site structure and navigation — whether sections are built logically and there are no dead ends;
- load speed and Core Web Vitals compliance, mobile measured separately;
- duplicates — duplicate URLs, tag pages, filter pages;
- correctness of redirects, canonical tags and technical forwarding;
- the state of sitemap.xml and robots.txt;
- HTTPS and connection security;
- schema.org structured data and other machine-readable signals;
- indexing errors and Google Search Console reports;
- responsiveness and correct rendering on mobile devices.
The purpose of a technical audit is to remove the barriers that stop search engines working with the site correctly. It is not an end in itself, but the condition without which the rest of your SEO underperforms.
When you need an SEO audit
An audit is not a one-off procedure but a tool applied in specific situations:
- before launching a new site — so the technical foundation does not slow down indexing;
- before a redesign or migration — to avoid losing rankings and traffic during the move. Checking beforehand costs a fraction of recovering afterwards, which is why we also handle SEO at the development stage;
- when traffic or rankings drop — to establish whether the cause is technical, an algorithm change, or competitor activity;
- before launching paid advertising — so you are not paying for clicks to pages that load slowly or convert poorly;
- before starting SEO work — so the campaign is not built on a broken foundation;
- to review a previous contractor’s work — for an independent assessment of the site’s real condition;
- annually as routine — sites change, and errors accumulate quietly.
What problems an SEO audit uncovers
- slow loading and failure to meet Core Web Vitals thresholds;
- duplicate pages and content that waste crawl budget;
- indexing errors — pages missing from Google or absent from the sitemap;
- broken links and faulty redirects — 404s, 500s, chains and loops;
- incorrect directives — noindex or robots.txt blocks where they should not be;
- mobile issues — broken rendering, inaccessible elements;
- weak content optimisation — intent mismatch, low click-through rate in search results;
- outdated practices that no longer work or actively cause harm;
- content that AI systems cannot read — text loaded by scripts that never reaches assistant answers.
Technical, content or comprehensive audit
| Format |
When to choose it |
What you get |
| Technical |
Indexing problems, falling rankings, a slow site, suspected technical errors |
A list of technical barriers and the order in which to remove them |
| Content |
Traffic exists, but pages do not rank for the queries you care about |
A relevance assessment, thin pages identified, a plan for reworking copy and metadata |
| Comprehensive |
You need the whole picture and a development strategy, not a point fix |
Technical layer, content, structure, links, competitors and analytics in one document |
If you are not sure which format you need, that is normal — it can be determined during the introductory call, based on the size of the site and the nature of the problem.
Technical audit with Screaming Frog
One of the core tools in a technical audit is Screaming Frog SEO Spider. It crawls the site the way a search engine does and surfaces what a browser will not show you: broken links, duplicates, faulty redirects, meta tag problems, missing canonicals, robots.txt errors.
A crawler gives a complete picture of errors, but it does not decide which of them matter — that is a specialist’s job. This is why automated crawling always runs alongside manual analysis in our process.
What an SEO audit includes
Technical layer
- load speed and Core Web Vitals: LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1;
- indexing setup: robots.txt, sitemap.xml, canonical, noindex;
- redirect behaviour: 301, 302, 404, chains and loops;
- duplicate pages and content;
- mobile responsiveness and correct rendering;
- security: SSL/HTTPS, absence of third-party code.
Content
- how well content matches search intent, not merely whether keywords are present;
- H1–H3 heading structure, correctness of Title and Description;
- uniqueness and completeness of topic coverage;
- thin pages with minimal substance;
- snippet optimisation to improve click-through rate.
Structure and usability
- navigation logic and depth of nesting;
- internal linking;
- number of clicks to key pages;
- dead ends and broken links;
- conversion elements: forms, buttons, calls to action.
Semantics and query coverage
- whether the site structure covers actual demand in your market;
- which queries have no corresponding page;
- cannibalisation — two pages competing for the same cluster;
- page-to-intent alignment, verified against live search results.
External factors
- backlink profile: volume, quality, toxicity;
- domain authority relative to competitors;
- anchor text analysis;
- identification of links that may be doing harm.
AI search readiness
Google now shows an AI Overview block above organic results, and in parallel people get part of their answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and other assistants. For a business this is a new scenario: the user may never visit the site, but remembers the brand named in the answer.
As part of the audit we check:
- structured data — whether systems can unambiguously identify what is on the page;
- whether content is accessible without script execution;
- whether key sections contain self-contained, quotable statements;
- whether the brand is mentioned in assistant answers for relevant queries.
This does not replace generative engine optimisation as a separate discipline, but it shows how ready the site is for it.
Analytics and goal tracking
- correct implementation of GA4 and Google Search Console;
- goal and event configuration: enquiries, calls, transactions;
- accuracy of traffic source attribution;
- whether the result of any promotion can be measured with the data you currently collect.
What you receive in the report
The output is a document a developer can work from, not a set of general advice. It contains:
- findings separated into critical, moderate and minor;
- an explanation for each: what exactly it affects and why it matters;
- step-by-step recommendations with specific actions;
- an implementation order: what to fix first, what can wait;
- screenshots, examples of errors and links to the affected URLs;
- a list of the tools and data sources used during the check.
Prioritisation is based on impact against effort: the items that deliver the most for the least work come first. We do not quote projected traffic figures before the errors are fixed — those can only be assessed once search has responded to the changes.
What implementing the recommendations achieves
An audit on its own changes nothing — implementation is what produces the result. After the identified errors are fixed, a site typically:
- indexes faster and more completely;
- runs more reliably and loads faster;
- meets Google’s current technical requirements;
- stops spending crawl budget on duplicates and utility pages;
- holds users better thanks to a clearer structure;
- produces accurate analytics you can actually make decisions from.
How far that translates into traffic and enquiry growth depends on your market, the competition, the volume of fixes and the work that follows. We set realistic targets with you after the audit, when the real picture is visible — not before it.
If you continue working with us after the audit, we oversee implementation: agreeing completed tasks weekly and adjusting the plan where needed.
What makes an ITForce audit different
We do not invent work. If the site is set up correctly and there are no serious problems, we will say so. It happens less often than we would like, but it happens — and in that case the report will be short, and the recommendations will be about growth rather than repair.
Manual analysis alongside automation. A crawler finds the standard errors within an hour. What it will not see is that a category was built around a query nobody searches for, or that two pages are competing with each other. That takes a person.
Priorities, not a list. A hundred-item report with no prioritisation is useless — there is no way to tell where to start. We separate findings by impact and effort so the first results arrive sooner.
A report you can work from. Recommendations are written so your developer can act on them without further explanation — with specific URLs, examples and a description of the expected outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to give access to my analytics?
Yes. We request read-only access through Google’s official services, which means we are technically unable to change any settings. Access can be revoked at any moment with a single click.
Do I have to continue working with ITForce after the audit?
No. The report is a finished product. You can implement it yourself, with your own team, or with another contractor. Continuing with us is entirely your decision.
Can I order only a technical or only a content audit?
Yes. The format is chosen to fit the problem: if indexing is the issue, you need a technical audit; if pages exist but do not rank, a content audit.
How often should an audit be repeated?
Routinely, once a year. Outside that schedule: after a redesign, a migration, a CMS change or a noticeable shift in traffic. In competitive markets and on large stores, every six months.
How long does an audit take?
A technical audit of a small or mid-sized site takes 3–5 business days; a comprehensive audit 7–14. For large projects the timeline is agreed separately — tens of thousands of pages cannot be checked in a week without losing quality.
When will results be visible?
The first effects of fixing critical errors — faster indexing, technical failures disappearing — show within a few weeks. Changes in rankings and traffic appear more slowly and depend on the volume of fixes, the market, and how quickly the recommendations are implemented.
Do you run the audit yourselves or hand it to an automated service?
We use automated tools to gather data, but the conclusions and prioritisation are made by a specialist. A report generated by a service with no human involvement is a list of errors with no understanding of which ones actually affect your business.
Does the audit include competitor analysis?
In the comprehensive audit, yes: we compare visibility, structure and backlink profile against the competitors in your search results. A technical audit focuses on your site alone.
Order an SEO audit
Send us a request and we will arrange a short introductory call. On it we will go through your objective, the state of your analytics and the size of your site, after which you will get a straight answer: which audit format you need, what it will cost and how long it will take.
If it turns out from that conversation that you do not need an audit right now, we will tell you so directly.
