Technical SEO is the foundation that all other SEO sits on. You can produce the best content in your industry, build excellent backlinks, and optimise every meta tag perfectly - but if your website has crawl errors, slow mobile speed, or duplicate content issues, Google cannot rank it. Indian websites tend to have specific technical issues that are more common than in Western markets: oversized images not served in WebP format, no HTTPS on some subdomains, mobile pages that are slower than their desktop versions, and server infrastructure that performs poorly for Indian IP addresses. This checklist covers 47 technical SEO checks organised by priority.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Technical SEO is the foundation - poor technical health prevents content and links from driving rankings
- ✓Mobile LCP under 2.5 seconds is the single most impactful fix for most Indian websites (currently averaging 4-6s)
- ✓GSC URL Inspection tool and Coverage report identify indexation issues before they become ranking problems
- ✓Priority 1 issues (crawlability, speed, HTTPS) must be fixed before content investment compounds
- ✓Technical SEO audit every 6 months and after every major code change or redesign
Crawlability and Indexation Checks (Priority 1)
1. robots.txt: fetch /robots.txt and confirm it does not block key pages or the CSS/JS files Google needs to render your site. 2. Sitemap: check that /sitemap.xml exists, is submitted in GSC, and contains all your priority pages. 3. Index coverage: in GSC, check Index Coverage report for crawl errors, "Discovered - not indexed," and "Crawled - not indexed" pages. 4. Canonical tags: verify that every page has a self-referencing canonical tag and that paginated pages have proper canonicals. 5. Noindex tags: audit for accidental noindex tags on important pages (check especially staging pages that may have been pushed to production). 6. 404 errors: GSC Coverage report shows 404s - fix or redirect every one that gets organic traffic. 7. Redirect chains: audit for 301 redirect chains longer than 2 hops, which waste crawl budget. 8. HTTP to HTTPS: all URLs must redirect to HTTPS, including www/non-www variants. 9. Internal link check: crawl with Screaming Frog to find broken internal links (returns 404 or redirect). 10. XML sitemap accuracy: sitemap should only include canonical, indexable URLs - not 301 redirect URLs.
- →GSC URL Inspection tool: use on every priority page to check actual index status and last crawl date
- →Screaming Frog free tier: crawl up to 500 URLs to find technical issues without cost
- →Sitemap submission check: confirm sitemap is submitted and shows "Success" in GSC
- →robots.txt critical check: ensure CSS and JS files are not disallowed - Google needs them to render pages
Core Web Vitals and Speed Checks (Priority 1)
11. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): target under 2.5s for mobile and desktop. Measure in GSC Core Web Vitals report. 12. FID/INP (Interaction to Next Paint): target under 200ms. JavaScript-heavy Indian websites frequently fail this. 13. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): target under 0.1. Common culprits: ads that load late, images without dimensions. 14. Mobile PageSpeed score: target 80+/100 in Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Most Indian websites score 40-60. 15. Desktop PageSpeed score: target 90+/100. 16. Time to First Byte (TTFB): target under 600ms from Indian IP addresses. Test using webpagetest.org with an Indian location. 17. Image optimisation: all images should be in WebP format with explicit width/height attributes. 18. Next-gen image formats: check if your CMS serves WebP automatically or if manual conversion is needed. 19. JavaScript execution time: over 3.5 seconds of JS execution is a speed problem. Check in Lighthouse. 20. CSS render-blocking: critical CSS should be inlined, non-critical deferred.
On-Page Technical Checks (Priority 2)
21. Title tags: every page must have a unique title tag, 50-60 characters, keyword first. Check for duplicates in GSC. 22. Meta descriptions: 120-155 characters, unique per page, includes primary keyword. 23. H1 tags: exactly one H1 per page, containing the primary keyword. 24. H2-H6 hierarchy: headings should form a logical hierarchy without skipping levels. 25. Canonical tag implementation: consistent with hreflang, no conflicting signals. 26. Image alt text: every image needs descriptive alt text (not keyword-stuffed, genuinely descriptive). 27. Structured data: validate all schema markup using Google's Rich Results Test. 28. hreflang tags: for Indian sites serving Hindi and English, proper hreflang implementation is required. 29. Internal linking: priority pages should have 3-5 internal links from other relevant pages. 30. Anchor text: descriptive (not "click here"), keyword-rich but not over-optimised. 31. URL structure: short, hyphenated, lowercase, no underscores, no parameters on key pages.
Mobile and User Experience Checks (Priority 2)
32. Mobile-friendly test: pass Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. 33. Touch targets: all buttons and links must be at least 44x44px. 34. Viewport meta tag: must be present on every page. 35. Interstitials: no intrusive interstitials on mobile (Google penalises these). 36. Font size: minimum 16px for body text on mobile. 37. Content parity: mobile and desktop must show the same content (mobile-first indexing). 38. AMP: not required but check if your CMS generates AMP pages with errors. 39. WhatsApp click-to-chat: Indian SEO signals include engagement rate - a WhatsApp button increases engagement. 40. Breadcrumb navigation: present on all inner pages for user orientation and schema markup.
Security and Infrastructure Checks (Priority 1)
41. HTTPS: site-wide HTTPS with valid SSL certificate (check expiry). 42. Mixed content: no HTTP assets loaded on HTTPS pages (check browser console). 43. HTTP security headers: check for X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection, Strict-Transport-Security. 44. Domain consistency: one canonical domain (www vs. non-www), redirecting the alternate. 45. Server location: if your primary market is India, hosting on Indian servers or with Cloudflare's Indian edge nodes reduces TTFB from Indian IPs. 46. CDN: content delivery network in use for static assets (images, CSS, JS). Cloudflare free tier is sufficient for most Indian websites. 47. Monitoring: GSC email alerts set up for coverage drops or manual actions. Our technical SEO audit service covers all 47 of these checks with detailed fix guidance and implementation support.
Key Takeaway
A technical SEO audit should be conducted every 3-6 months for actively growing websites and after every major website rebuild or CMS migration. The highest-impact issues for most Indian websites are: mobile page speed (LCP under 2.5s), crawl errors in GSC, duplicate content from parameter URLs, and missing or incorrect canonical tags. Fix Priority 1 issues first - they directly prevent Google from ranking your pages regardless of content quality.
