Technical SEO checklist for WordPress sites and e-commerce
Excellent content won’t rank if Google can’t access it or understand it, or if the page experience gets in the way. That’s why every SEO project starts with the technical side. The good news: many of the most common problems can be checked with Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights, with no paid tool.
Quick technical audit
Tick what’s already right on your site.
0 of 22 items
Indexing and crawling
Performance and experience
Page structure
WordPress and e-commerce
Where to check each block
Indexing and crawling
In Google Search Console, the page indexing report shows what’s out of the index and why. The URL inspection tool confirms whether a specific page can be indexed and which canonical Google chose.
Performance and experience
Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report uses real data from Chrome users. PageSpeed Insights shows the same field data for a URL, plus improvement suggestions.
Page structure
A crawl with tools like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) shows duplicate titles, missing H1s and broken links in a few minutes.
WordPress and e-commerce
Review the SEO plugin settings for author, date and tag archives, and check in Search Console whether URLs with filter parameters show up as indexed.
Ticked less than half? No need to panic — that’s normal for most sites we audit. Prioritize indexing first, then performance, and only then structural refinements.
The technical problems that come up most in WordPress
- Tag, author and date pages indexed, creating dozens of thin pages that compete with the main content.
- Media attachments with their own page, generating contentless URLs for every uploaded image.
- Page builders and plugins loading scripts on every page, even where they aren’t used, which hurts loading.
- The “discourage search engines” setting left switched on after the site launched.
- Redirects lost in migrations, when pages’ old addresses don’t point to the new ones.
The technical problems that come up most in e-commerce
| Problem | Impact | Common fix |
|---|---|---|
| Filters generating indexable URLs | Thousands of duplicate pages eating up crawl budget | Canonical, parameter blocking or noindex on combinations with no demand |
| Out-of-stock product removed | 404 error on pages with history and links | Keep the page with alternatives or redirect to an equivalent product |
| Descriptions copied from the manufacturer | Content identical to dozens of competitors | Original descriptions on the highest-margin products |
| Heavy images in the catalog | Slow loading and poor Core Web Vitals | Modern formats, compression and correct dimensions |
| Categories with no text | Little context to rank for category terms | A useful introduction and links to subcategories |
How often to audit
A full technical audit makes sense at the start of any SEO project, before and after migrations and redesigns, and at least once a year. Between audits, Search Console should be checked monthly: new indexing errors, sudden drops in indexed pages and worsening Core Web Vitals are usually the first signs something has changed.
The technical audit is the second step of Manáry’s SEO onboarding, and performance fixes are also part of web development.
Frequently asked questions
What is technical SEO?
It’s the set of adjustments that let search engines crawl, index and understand a site’s pages, covering indexing, speed, URL structure, structured data and the mobile experience.
Which tools should I use to audit technical SEO?
Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights, both free, cover much of the analysis. Crawling tools like Screaming Frog help find duplicate titles and broken links at scale.
What are good Core Web Vitals values?
LCP up to 2.5 seconds, INP up to 200 milliseconds and CLS up to 0.1, measured with real user data.
Is WordPress good for SEO?
It’s a platform with good SEO features, as long as it’s well configured: a tuned SEO plugin, no-value pages kept out of the index, a lightweight theme and updated plugins.
Would you rather we ran this audit?
We deliver the technical diagnosis prioritized by impact, with what to fix first.
Want to apply this to your business?
Manáry looks at your real numbers — media, website and CRM — and hands back the priorities in order of impact.
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