Session 17: Technical SEO Audit Toolkit

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MBA DM Phase 2: The Agency Simulation

Session 17

Technical SEO Audit Toolkit

Block 3 begins: real-world audit skills for A3.

Today's Agenda

  • From "add keywords" to full technical audit
  • Crawlability, indexability, site speed, mobile
  • Free audit tools walkthrough
  • Deliverable: Technical audit checklist run (A3 input)

Sandbox vs. Agency SEO

Phase 1 optimized one page. An agency audits an entire site: crawl errors, broken links, duplicate titles, missing schema, slow load times.

The Technical Audit Checklist

AreaCheck
Crawlabilityrobots.txt, sitemap.xml present & valid
IndexabilityNo accidental noindex tags
SpeedCore Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)
MobileMobile-friendly test passes

Worked Example: Pathshala Tutors

Audit log for pathshalatutors.example (illustrative):

# Issue Pages Evidence Severity
1 robots.txt contains Disallow: /courses/ — course pages blocked from crawling 6 course pages robots.txt screenshot; pages missing from site: search High
2 Mobile LCP 4.8 s; hero image is a 2.1 MB PNG Home, IELTS page PageSpeed Insights report High
3 Both http:// and https:// versions resolve, with no redirect Whole site Browser test High
4 Pricing page missing from sitemap.xml /pricing/ sitemap.xml file Medium
5 CLS 0.24 from a late-loading WhatsApp banner All pages PageSpeed Insights Medium
6 14 images without alt text Blog Manual check Low

Worked Example: Pathshala Tutors (cont.)

Top 3 for Session 19: issues 1, 2 and 3. Issue 1 alone explains why the course pages never rank: Google was told not to crawl them.

Full walkthrough in the session note.

Check: Audit Scope

Prompt: cold-call a student.

Toolkit Reference

Use free tools: Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse mobile audits, and Screaming Frog (free tier).

Reference: On-Page SEO Checklist

Lab: Run Your Technical Audit

  1. Run your site (or a client site) through the 4-area checklist
  2. Screenshot/document 3 specific issues found
  3. Note severity (critical / moderate / minor) for each

Deliverable for Session 17

Technical Audit Findings

First component of your A3 SEO Mini-Audit.

Review Questions 📝

  1. What is the role of robots.txt and sitemap.xml?
  2. State the three Core Web Vitals and their "good" thresholds.
  3. How can you check quickly whether Google has indexed a site's pages?

Apply it: A Kathmandu hotel's booking page does not appear in Google. List, in order, the technical checks you would run and what each could reveal.

Thank You!

Open Session 17 Note