It is possible to dodge these surprises by reviewing your analytics accounts, and understanding your traffic patterns. Check your bounce rates, time on site, landing pages or goals and conversions; do any of them seem off, or are showing unusual numbers?
Below is also a quick and easy checklist that you can follow to check in on the pass/fail status of a number of technical and SEO audit tasks that are essential to the functionality of your website:
| Technical Audit | Pass/Fail | Status | Notes |
| Crawl/Index Errors | |||
| Domain Expiration | |||
| Domain Name Redirection | |||
| Server Setup – SSL | |||
| Robots.txt | |||
| Robots Meta Tags | |||
| XML Sitemap | |||
| Malware | |||
| Page Load Speed | |||
| Indexing – Site:Search | |||
| Dynamic URLs | |||
| Meta Titles | |||
| Meta Descriptions | |||
| Meta Keywords | |||
| H1 Headings | |||
| Duplicate Content | |||
| Image ALT Titles | |||
| HTTP 401 Errors | |||
| HTTP 404 Errors | |||
| HTTP 500 Errors |
There are many tasks to stay on top of during a technical audit; the goal is to focus on juggling the on-going management of these tasks, rather than dodging surprises that come as a result of ignoring them.
If you’ve recently completed a technical audit and are still unhappy with the results you’re getting from your current site, it might be time for you to think about growth-driven design. To learn more, download a copy of our new eBook, An Introduction to Growth-Driven Design:
