How to Do a Technical SEO Audit for Your Website

A technical SEO audit is like taking your car in for a service; you might look great on the outside, but if the engine is sluggish or the exhaust is leaking, you isn't going anywhere fast. For Australian small businesses, ensuring your site is technically sound is the foundation that allows your content and local reputation to actually show up in Google search results.

Why Technical SEO Matters for Brisbane Businesses

If Google’s “crawlers” (the bots that read your site) run into a technical wall, they’ll simply stop. It doesn’t matter how good your service is or how many five-star reviews you have from locals in Fortitude Valley or Chermside; if the technical foundation is broken, your rankings will suffer.

This guide is designed to help you identify the most common “handbrake” issues so you can release them and start moving up the rankings.

Prerequisites: What You’ll Need

Before we dive in, make sure you have access to these free tools. Honestly, you can't do a proper audit without them:

• Google Search Console (GSC): Essential. If you haven’t set this up yet, go do that first. It’s how Google talks to you.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: They have a free version for up to 500 URLs, which is plenty for most local business sites.
• Google PageSpeed Insights: To check how fast your site loads on Aussie mobile connections.
• A cup of coffee: This can get a bit dry, so grab a flat white and let’s get stuck in.

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Step 1: Check Your Indexing Status

The first thing we need to know is: Is Google actually seeing your pages?

Open Google Search Console, click on 'Pages' under the Indexing section on the left-hand sidebar.

• What you should see: A chart showing "Indexed" (green) and "Not indexed" (grey) pages.
• The red flag: If you see a massive spike in "Not indexed" pages, or if your main services pages are in the grey section, you have a problem.

Step 2: Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly

In Australia, over 50% of web traffic is on mobile. Google uses "mobile-first indexing," meaning it looks at your mobile site before your desktop site to decide where you rank.

Go back to GSC and look for 'Settings' > 'Crawl Stats' or simply look at the 'Page Experience' report.

Alternatively, open your website on your phone. Can you click the buttons easily with your thumb? Is the text big enough to read without squinting while you're walking down Queen Street? If the answer is no, Google will penalise you.

Step 3: Check Your Site Speed (The "Brisbane NBN" Test)

We’ve all been there—trying to load a website on a patchy 4G connection while on the train. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, people will leave.

• Go to PageSpeed Insights.
• Plug in your URL.
• Look at the Core Web Vitals assessment.

Step 4: Crawl Your Site with Screaming Frog

This is where it gets a bit "techy," but stay with me. Download and open Screaming Frog, enter your URL at the top, and hit 'Start'.

This tool mimics how Google sees your site. Once it finishes (it might take a minute), look at the 'Response Codes' tab.

• Look for 404 errors: These are broken links. They are annoying for users and bad for SEO.
• Look for 301 redirects: A few are fine, but "redirect chains" (where Page A goes to B, which goes to C) slow everything down.

Step 5: Audit Your Site Architecture & URLs

Your URL structure should be logical. Think of it like a filing cabinet.

• Good: website.com.au/services/plumbing/
• Bad: website.com.au/p=123-final-v2/

Ensure your URLs are short, descriptive, and use hyphens (not underscores) to separate words. Also, check that you are using HTTPS. If your site says "Not Secure" in the browser bar, stop everything and get an SSL certificate. It’s 2024; this is non-negotiable for trust.

Step 6: Check for Duplicate Content

Google hates it when the same content appears in multiple places. This often happens with "www" vs "non-www" versions of your site.

Try typing both into your browser:

• https://yourbusiness.com.au
• https://www.yourbusiness.com.au

They should both end up at the same URL. If they don't, Google sees them as two different websites with identical content, which dilutes your "ranking power."

Step 7: Review Your Sitemap and Robots.txt

These are the "instruction manuals" for Google.

• Sitemap: Go to yourwebsite.com.au/sitemap.xml. It should be a clean list of your active pages. If it’s a mess or leads to a 404 error, Google might struggle to find your new content.
• Robots.txt: Go to yourwebsite.com.au/robots.txt.

Step 8: Image Optimisation

This is where most Brisbane small business owners get caught out. You take a beautiful photo of your showroom on your iPhone and upload it directly. That file is likely 5MB.

• The Fix: Images should ideally be under 100KB.
• The Check: In your Screaming Frog crawl, look at the 'Images' tab and sort by size. Anything over 200KB needs to be compressed.
• Alt Text: Ensure your images have "Alt Text" (descriptions). Don't just stuff keywords. Describe what's in the photo for people using screen readers.

Step 9: Check for Schema Markup (Structured Data)

Schema is a special code that helps Google understand specific details, like your business hours, your ABN, or your physical location in Brisbane.

Use the Schema Markup Validator to see if your site has "LocalBusiness" schema. If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to show up in the "Map Pack" (the top 3 local results).

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Troubleshooting Common Issues

Summary Checklist

• [ ] SSL (HTTPS) is active and working.
• [ ] Only one version of the site (WWW or non-WWW) is accessible.
• [ ] Sitemap.xml is submitted in Google Search Console.
• [ ] Robots.txt isn't blocking the site.
• [ ] Images are compressed (under 200KB).
• [ ] No major 404 errors on key pages.
• [ ] Site passes the Mobile-Friendly test.

Next Steps

Once you've cleared the technical hurdles, your site is ready for the fun stuff: content marketing and link building. Technical SEO doesn't get you to #1 by itself, but it prevents you from getting there if it's broken.

If this all feels a bit overwhelming or you've found errors you aren't sure how to fix, we're here to help. At Local Marketing Group, we live and breathe this stuff so you don't have to.