The Technical SEO Audit: How to Lift Your Site From Below Average to 90+

You run an SEO audit, and the score comes back below average. The report lists dozens of warnings, and it isn't clear where to start. Worse, the score doesn't match the number another tool showed you last week. Both reactions are common, and neither means your site is broken. An audit score is a summary of many smaller checks, and most of the points sit in a short list of fixes. If you handle them in the right order, a below-average score can move a long way without a rebuild. Quick Answer Fix technical SEO in this order: first make sure Google can reach and index your pages, then clean your sitemap, then correct titles, descriptions, and headings, then repair links and images, and finally add structured data and speed improvements. The first three steps usually produce the biggest jump. Re-run the audit after each stage so you can see what actually changed. Why Different Tools Give Different Scores Before fixing anything, understand what the number means. Audit tools score different things. Lighthouse SEO score (inside Chrome and PageSpeed Insights) checks a basic list: a title, a meta description, crawlable links, valid robots.txt, image alt text, readable font sizes, and tap targets. It's a baseline, not a full audit. Third-party crawlers (the audit tools sold by SEO platforms) scan your whole site and flag issues like broken links, duplicate titles, and redirect chains. They use their own scoring formulas. Google Search Console shows what Google itself found: which pages are indexed, which are excluded, and why. A site can score 95 on Lighthouse and still have serious indexing problems, because Lighthouse checks one page at a time. So treat any score as a to-do list, not a verdict, and treat Search Console as your source of truth. Step 1: Confirm Google Can Reach and Index Your Pages If Google can't index a page, nothing else about that page matters. Start here. Verify your site in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap. Open the Pages report and look at the "Not indexed" section. Read the reasons: "Crawled, currently not indexed," "Discovered, currently not indexed," "Blocked by robots.txt," "Page with redirect," "Not found (404)," and "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" each point to a different fix. Use the URL Inspection tool on your most important pages. It shows whether Google can crawl the page, which canonical it chose, and how the page looks to Googlebot. Check your robots.txt file. Make sure it doesn't block pages you want ranked. Blocking admin or private areas is fine, but accidentally blocking your blog or scripts is not. Look for stray noindex tags on pages that should rank. If many of your articles appear under "Discovered, currently not indexed," Google knows they exist but hasn't judged them worth crawling yet. That's often a signal of weak internal linking or thin content, not a technical bug, and we'll address both below. Step 2: Clean Up Your Sitemap Your sitemap is a list of pages you're asking Google to index. It should contain only good ones. Sitemaps with errors are one of the most common reasons audit scores drop, and one of the easiest to fix. Remove or repair anything that is: A page that returns a 404 or 500 error A page that redirects somewhere else A login, sign-up, or dashboard page A URL with tracking or filter parameters whose canonical points to a different page A page marked noindex An app screen or utility page with no real content Then keep it healthy: List only canonical, indexable URLs. Use accurate last-modified dates. Marking every page as changed daily teaches search engines to ignore the field. Make sure the sitemap is referenced in robots.txt. Resubmit it in Search Console after cleaning it. Open your sitemap, test every URL, and note the status of each. A crawler or a simple script can do this in minutes. Fix the broken pages if they should exist, and remove them if they shouldn't. Step 3: Fix Titles, Descriptions, and Headings Once Google can find your pages, it needs to understand them. This is where on-page fixes pay off. Title Tags Give every page a unique title of roughly 50 to 60 characters, so it isn't cut off in search results. Put the main topic first, and add your brand at the end. Avoid generic titles like "Home" or just your brand name. A homepage title should say what you do and for whom. Meta Descriptions Write a unique description for each page, around 140 to 160 characters. Summarize the page honestly and give a reason to click. Remove leftover template wording that doesn't match your actual content. Headings Use exactly one H1 per page that describes the topic. Use H2s for main sections and H3s for sub-points, in a logical order. Make sure section titles are real heading tags, not just bold text. Right-click the page, choose View Source, and search for <h2 to confirm. Many content editors turn headings into plain paragraphs without anyone noticing. Headings give search engines a map of your page, and they help readers scan. Getting them right also supports semantic search, where Google judges topic coverage, not just keywords. Step 4: Repair Links and Fix Internal Linking Broken and Redirected Links Crawl your site and list every link that returns a 404 error. Update or remove them. Replace links that go through redirects with direct links to the final page. Fix redirect chains, where one redirect leads to another. Internal Linking Internal links tell Google which pages matter and help it discover new ones. They also keep visitors reading. Every important page should be reachable within three clicks from the homepage. Link from each article to two or three genuinely related pages, using descriptive anchor text such as "technical SEO checklist" instead of "click here." If your blog uses a "load more" button or infinite scroll, add real paginated links so crawlers can reach older posts. A sitemap alone isn't enough to get posts crawled. Avoid orphan pages, which have no links pointing to them. If you've published dozens of articles, this step often unlocks more traffic than anything else. Our technical SEO checklist covers the foundation, and a clear content calendar built around search data helps you plan links between pieces. Step 5: Resolve Duplicate and Competing Content If several pages target the same topic, they split ranking signals and compete with one another. This is common on blogs that have grown over time. List your posts and group any that cover the same question. Choose the strongest one in each group. Merge the useful parts of the weaker ones into it. Redirect the old URL to the winning page with a 301 redirect. Update internal links to point to the survivor. Merging duplicates leaves you with fewer, stronger pages. It's also easier to maintain. Step 6: Optimize Images and Add Alt Text Give every meaningful image a short, descriptive alt text. Skip decorative images or leave their alt text empty. Use descriptive file names, such as seo-audit-checklist.webp, not IMG\_4021.png. Compress images and use modern formats like WebP. Set width and height attributes so layouts don't jump while loading. Alt text helps accessibility, image search, and audit scores all at once. Step 7: Add Structured Data Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines understand what a page is. It can also make your listing eligible for richer displays. Add Organization or LocalBusiness markup to your homepage. Add Article or BlogPosting markup to blog posts, with the headline, author, and dates. Add FAQPage markup only where a real FAQ appears on the page. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test and fix any errors. Don't mark up content that isn't visible on the page, because that can cause problems. Step 8: Fix the Basics of Mobile and Speed Mobile experience and loading speed affect both your audit score and your rankings. Make sure the page includes the viewport meta tag. Keep text readable without zooming, and make buttons large enough to tap. Compress images, defer non-essential scripts, and remove plugins you don't use. Speed has its own deep-dive, so follow our Core Web Vitals guide for the detailed steps. Step 9: Check Security and Consistency Serve every page over HTTPS and redirect HTTP to HTTPS. Pick one version of your domain, with or without www, and redirect the other. Use that same version in your canonical tags, sitemap, and image URLs. Mixing versions creates unnecessary duplicates. Keep your contact details, such as phone numbers, consistent across pages. A Realistic Order of Work Priority Fix Typical effort 1 Indexing, robots.txt, noindex checks 1 to 2 hours 2 Sitemap cleanup 1 hour 3 Titles, descriptions, headings 2 to 5 hours 4 Broken links and internal linking 3 to 8 hours 5 Duplicate content merges 2 to 6 hours 6 Image alt text and compression 2 to 4 hours 7 Structured data 1 to 3 hours 8 Speed and mobile Varies These ranges are rough estimates for a small to medium site. Your own numbers will depend on how many pages you have. How to Measure Progress Record your starting scores and screenshot the report. Fix one stage, then re-run the same tool, so you compare like with like. Track indexed pages in Search Console weekly. Watch impressions and clicks for the pages you changed. Be realistic about timing. Scores in audit tools can improve within minutes of a fix, but rankings and traffic follow more slowly, as we explain in how long SEO actually takes. Google needs time to recrawl your pages, so expect a lag of days to weeks before changes show up in Search Console. Common Mistakes to Avoid Chasing the score instead of the cause. A 100 on a basic checker doesn't guarantee Google has indexed your pages. Fixing low-impact warnings first. Start with indexing and sitemap errors, not minor cosmetic flags. Deleting pages without redirects. You lose any links and traffic those pages earned. Changing many things at once. You won't know which change helped. Ignoring Search Console. Third-party tools estimate, while Search Console reports what Google actually saw. Frequently Asked Questions What is a good SEO audit score? Most tools treat 90 and above as strong, but each uses its own formula. Compare a tool's score against itself over time, and use Search Console to confirm what Google actually indexes. Why is my SEO score low even though my site looks good? Audits check technical and on-page signals that visitors never see, such as missing descriptions, broken links, sitemap errors, and heading structure. A good-looking site can fail all of them. How often should I run a technical SEO audit? Run a full audit every quarter, and a quick check after any redesign, migration, or large content upload. Check Search Console monthly. Will fixing technical SEO guarantee higher rankings? No. It removes obstacles and makes your content eligible to rank. Rankings still depend on content quality, competition, and links. Where to Go From Here Start with indexing and the sitemap, because those two fixes remove the biggest barriers. Then work down the list, measuring as you go. Most sites improve noticeably within a few weeks of focused work.