Technical SEO Audit Guide Canada: Step-by-Step Checklist

Crawlability & Indexation Checks

Before Google can rank your pages, it must find them, crawl their content, and add them to its index. Crawlability problems are the most serious technical SEO issues because they can silently exclude your most important pages from search entirely.

Google Search Console: Your First Stop

Open Google Search Console and navigate to the Coverage report (now called the Indexing report in newer versions). This shows you exactly which pages Google has indexed, which it has found but not indexed, and which it cannot access at all. Key things to investigate:

• Excluded pages: Review every URL listed under "Excluded" — some exclusions are intentional (like thank-you pages), but others reveal pages you want indexed that are being blocked.
• "Discovered — currently not indexed": These pages were found but not yet crawled. This often signals a crawl budget issue or internal linking weakness.
• "Crawled — currently not indexed": Google crawled these pages but decided not to index them — usually because of thin content, noindex tags, or canonicalization issues.
• Server errors (5xx): Pages returning server errors are completely inaccessible to Google and require immediate attention.

robots.txt Review

Visit yourdomain.ca/robots.txt and review every Disallow directive. A common error is accidentally blocking entire sections of a website — for example, a developer adding Disallow: / during a site rebuild and forgetting to remove it before launch. Confirm your robots.txt allows crawling of all pages you want indexed and is not blocking JavaScript or CSS files that Google needs to render your pages correctly.

Noindex Tag Audit

Use Screaming Frog or a similar crawler to identify every page with a noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header. Compare this list against pages you actively want to rank. Staging environments, tag/category pages, and search results pages should typically be noindexed — but if a noindex tag has accidentally migrated to production pages, it silently removes them from Google's index without any visible error.

URL Structure & Canonical Tags

Clean, consistent URL structures help both users and search engines understand your site's organization. Canonical tags communicate to Google which version of a URL is the "master" copy when similar content exists at multiple addresses.

URL Best Practices

• Use hyphens to separate words, not underscores or spaces
• Keep URLs short and descriptive — ideally under 75 characters
• Use lowercase letters consistently
• Avoid unnecessary parameters like ?sessionid= or tracking codes in canonical URLs
• Ensure consistent trailing slash usage (always use a trailing slash, or never — pick one and enforce it via redirects)

Canonical Tag Audit

Every page on your site should have a self-referencing canonical tag pointing to its preferred URL. This prevents duplicate content issues that commonly arise from:

• HTTP vs. HTTPS versions of the same page
• www vs. non-www variants
• Pages accessible at multiple URLs due to URL parameters
• Pagination creating near-duplicate content
• Location-based filters creating multiple near-identical pages (common on e-commerce sites)

Use Screaming Frog's "Canonicals" tab to export all canonical tags and check for: missing canonicals, canonicals pointing to non-200 pages, chains of canonicals (A canonicals to B which canonicals to C), and canonicals contradicting the robots.txt (a noindexed page cannot properly be canonical).

Redirect Audit

Audit all redirects on your site for: redirect chains (multiple hops slow crawl speed and dilute link equity), redirect loops that send Googlebot into an infinite loop, and 302 temporary redirects being used where 301 permanent redirects are appropriate. Every extra hop in a redirect chain wastes a small portion of your crawl budget and link authority — chains longer than three hops should always be collapsed to single redirects.

Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

Page speed is both a direct ranking factor and a critical user experience signal. Google's Core Web Vitals represent the three most impactful speed-related metrics for real-world user experience:

How to Check Core Web Vitals

Google Search Console's Core Web Vitals report shows field data (real Chrome user data) for your Canadian visitors — this is the data Google actually uses for ranking. Supplement with Google PageSpeed Insights for lab data and specific recommendations. For pages without enough field data (common on lower-traffic sites), rely on PageSpeed Insights lab scores as a proxy.

Common Performance Fixes

• Image optimization: Convert images to WebP format, add explicit width/height attributes, implement lazy loading for below-fold images, and use a CDN for delivery
• Eliminate render-blocking resources: Defer non-critical JavaScript, use async loading where appropriate, and minimize unused CSS
• Improve server response time (TTFB): Upgrade hosting if TTFB regularly exceeds 600ms, implement server-side caching, and consider a CDN
• Preload critical resources: Use <link rel="preload"> for your LCP image and critical fonts
• Reserve space for dynamic content: Always specify dimensions for images and ad slots to prevent CLS

Mobile Optimization

Google uses mobile-first indexing for all websites — meaning it primarily crawls and indexes the mobile version of your site. If your mobile experience is worse than desktop, your rankings will reflect the mobile version's quality, not the desktop version. In Canada, over 60% of local searches happen on mobile devices, making this audit category especially critical for service businesses.

Mobile Usability Checks

• Viewport meta tag: Confirm every page includes <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
• Tap target sizing: Buttons and links should be at least 48×48 pixels with adequate spacing to prevent accidental taps
• Text readability: Body text should be at least 16px — text smaller than 12px will be flagged by Google as a mobile usability issue
• No horizontal scrolling: Content should not exceed viewport width, requiring users to scroll sideways
• No intrusive interstitials: Full-page pop-ups that appear immediately on mobile load can trigger a Google penalty — use banners or delayed pop-ups instead
• Mobile content parity: The mobile version must contain the same primary content as the desktop version — content hidden in collapsed tabs on mobile should still be crawlable

Check the Mobile Usability report in Google Search Console for a list of any mobile-specific issues Google has detected. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool provides an instant assessment for any individual URL.

Schema Markup Audit

Schema markup (structured data) is JSON-LD code added to your pages that explicitly communicates information about your business to Google and AI engines. While not a direct ranking factor, schema unlocks rich results in search (star ratings, FAQs, how-to guides) and significantly improves how AI systems like Google's AI Overviews and other large language models understand and cite your business.

Schema Types for Canadian Businesses

• LocalBusiness / Organization: Your business name, address, phone number, opening hours, and service area — the most important schema for local Canadian businesses
• BreadcrumbList: Helps Google display breadcrumb navigation in search results, improving click-through rates
• FAQPage: Enables FAQ-style rich results displaying questions and answers directly in search — excellent for capturing featured snippets
• BlogPosting / Article: For blog content — signals content type, author, publish date, and enables author information in search results
• Review / AggregateRating: Displays star ratings in search results — significant for service businesses
• Service / Product: Describes specific services or products offered, useful for service area businesses

How to Validate Schema

Use Google's Rich Results Test at search.google.com/test/rich-results to validate schema on any URL. Also check Google Search Console's Enhancements section for schema-specific reports showing errors and warnings across your entire site. The Schema.org Markup Validator provides more comprehensive validation against the full schema.org specification.

Common schema errors include: invalid property values, required properties missing from LocalBusiness markup (especially address fields), JSON-LD syntax errors (missing commas, unclosed brackets), and schema describing content that is not visible on the page — Google's quality guidelines require schema to match visible page content.

Internal Linking Analysis

Internal links do three critical jobs: they help search engines discover new pages, distribute "link equity" (ranking authority) throughout your site, and signal to Google which pages are most important. A poorly structured internal linking architecture can leave your most valuable pages starved of authority while low-value pages accumulate undeserved link equity.

What to Check

• Orphaned pages: Pages with no internal links pointing to them that Google can only discover via sitemap — these pages receive zero internal link equity and may not be indexed
• Deep pages: Important pages requiring more than 3 clicks from the homepage should be brought closer by adding links from higher-authority pages
• Broken internal links: Links pointing to 404 pages waste crawl budget and create poor user experiences — Screaming Frog identifies all broken links in a single crawl
• Generic anchor text: "Click here" and "read more" anchor text wastes an opportunity to signal page topic to Google — use descriptive, keyword-relevant anchor text
• Over-linking: Pages with hundreds of internal links dilute the value passed through each link — prioritize quality over quantity

For Canadian local service businesses, ensure your most important city and service pages receive the most internal links from related content, blog posts, and your homepage navigation. A local SEO page for "Toronto plumbing services" should be linked from relevant blog posts about plumbing maintenance, your services index page, and any city-specific content.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content occurs when identical or very similar content appears at multiple URLs. This creates a ranking dilution problem: Google must decide which version to rank, often choosing wrong. On Canadian service websites, duplicate content most commonly occurs in multi-city service pages where only the city name changes, creating near-identical pages.

Types of Duplicate Content

• Internal duplicates: Your own site content at multiple URLs — the most common and fixable type. Resolve using canonical tags or 301 redirects.
• Scraped content: Other sites copying your content verbatim. Address by filing DMCA takedowns and ensuring your content is clearly attributed and dated.
• Thin location pages: Service area pages that are near-identical across 20 cities. Each page needs genuinely unique content covering that specific location.
• Boilerplate content: Footer disclaimers, product descriptions reused verbatim across hundreds of pages — differentiate with unique introductory content on each page.

Tools like Siteliner (free for up to 250 pages) and Screaming Frog's "Near Duplicates" report (premium) can identify pages with high content similarity. As a rough guide: pages sharing more than 80% of their content should be differentiated, merged, or canonicalized.

HTTPS & Security

HTTPS has been a Google ranking signal since 2014 and is now table stakes for any business website. Beyond rankings, the absence of HTTPS triggers "Not Secure" warnings in Chrome — a conversion-killing signal that makes visitors distrust your business before they've even read your content.

Security Checklist

• Confirm your SSL certificate is valid and not expired (check via Qualys SSL Labs)
• Ensure all internal links use HTTPS — any HTTP internal link can trigger a mixed content warning
• Check that HTTP versions of your URLs automatically redirect (301) to HTTPS
• Verify no third-party resources (scripts, fonts, images) are loaded over HTTP
• Review your HTTP security headers: implement Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS)
• If accepting payments or contact forms, ensure you are PCI compliant and using modern TLS (1.2 or 1.3 minimum)

XML Sitemap & robots.txt

Your XML sitemap tells Google which pages exist on your site and when they were last updated. A well-maintained sitemap helps Google prioritize crawling your most important content, which is especially valuable for larger Canadian business websites with hundreds of pages.

Sitemap Audit Checklist

• Sitemap is accessible at yourdomain.ca/sitemap.xml and submitted in Google Search Console
• Sitemap contains only indexable pages — no noindexed, redirected, or 404 URLs
• <lastmod> dates are accurate and updated when content changes (not a static date on every page)
• Sitemap is referenced in your robots.txt file
• Sitemap is under the 50,000 URL and 50MB uncompressed limit (use a sitemap index for larger sites)
• Image sitemap is present if you have significant image content that should appear in Google Images

robots.txt Best Practices

• Never block CSS, JavaScript, or image files — Google needs these to render and understand your pages
• Block admin areas, staging environments, and internal search result pages
• Do not rely on robots.txt to keep content private — blocked pages can still be indexed if linked externally
• Test your robots.txt rules using Google Search Console's robots.txt Tester before making changes

The Complete Technical SEO Checklist

Use this printable checklist to track your audit progress. Work through each category systematically, noting issues found and their priority level (Critical / High / Medium / Low).