Is Your Website Losing Traffic? It Might Not Be Content or Backlinks – But Technical SEO!

Many website owners believe their traffic is declining because their content isn’t good enough or they lack sufficient backlinks. But after auditing hundreds of sites, we’ve found that 90% of the time, the real issue is Technical SEO.

If your Technical SEO is broken, not only will Google struggle to read your content properly, but so will AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. 

Here are 11 essential Technical SEO audit steps you can implement today to fix your website’s performance and rankings:

1️⃣ Check Crawlability & Indexability

• Ensure your robots.txt file isn’t blocking important pages.
  
• Verify that no pages have a mistaken noindex tag.
  
• Submit your XML sitemap properly to Google Search Console.
  

2️⃣ Fix Index Bloat

• Clean up tag pages, pagination URLs, duplicate pages, and empty categories with no posts.
  
• Audit parameter URLs (e.g., ?color=, ?size=) and set them to noindex or remove them if unnecessary.
  

3️⃣ Redirects Audit

• Use 301 redirects for permanent moves.
  
• Avoid redirect chains and loops.
  
• Consolidate HTTP → HTTPS and www/non-www versions.
  
• Use tools like Screaming Frog to check and fix redirect issues site-wide.
  

4️⃣ Speed Optimization

• Run PageSpeed Insights tests.
  
• Use Cloudflare CDN for global speed and security.
  
• Implement lazy loading and minify JS, CSS, and HTML files.
  
• Keep server response time below 200ms.
  

Remember: Just a 1-second delay in loading time can reduce conversions by 7%.

5️⃣ Mobile-First Optimization

• Ensure your design is fully responsive.
  
• Test with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
  
• Check mobile loading speeds separately.
  
• Keep the content the same for both desktop and mobile to avoid indexing issues.
  

6️⃣ Schema & Structured Data

• Add JSON-LD schema markup for products, FAQs, reviews, and videos.
  
• Test your markup with Google’s Rich Results Test Tool.
  
• Only mark up content that is visibly present on the page.
  

7️⃣ Set Canonical Tags Correctly

• Use canonical tags for duplicate pages.
  
• Ensure HTTPS, lowercase URLs, and self-referencing canonicals.
  
• Do not block canonical pages with robots.txt.
  

8️⃣ Analyze Server Logs

• Identify which bots are crawling which pages and when.
  
• Discover where your crawl budget is being wasted.
  
• Detect slow-loading files or pages that affect crawl efficiency.
  

9️⃣ Optimize JavaScript SEO

• Avoid loading entire content via JavaScript.
  
• Implement server-side rendering where possible.
  
• Use Google’s URL Inspection Tool to check JS-rendered pages.
  

🔟 Improve Site Structure

• Ensure all pages are accessible within 3-4 clicks from the homepage.
  
• Add internal links between related pages.
  
• Create a clear silo structure for topic clusters and authority.
  

🔟+ Bonus: International SEO

• Use hreflang tags to target different languages or regions.
  
• Submit separate sitemaps for each language version.
  
• Avoid IP-based redirects as they can cause indexing issues.

Conclusion

Technical SEO is the backbone of your website’s visibility. Without strong technical foundations, even the best content will fail to rank or get noticed by AI platforms and search engines. 

Whether it’s Google or AI platforms like ChatGPT, if your website’s technical SEO is weak, no one will be able to fully read or understand your content. This will impact your entire site, regardless of how good your content is.

Start implementing these steps today to see a measurable difference in your website’s performance, ranking, and traffic growth.

Save this checklist for your next technical SEO audit. Share it with friends or colleagues who always wonder, “My content is great, why am I not ranking?”

Frequently Asked Questions