Skills

Technical SEO Audit Skill

Purpose

This Skill guides and structures technical SEO audits, using the templates/technical-seo-audit.md template as the backbone.

It helps:

• Turn raw crawl and GSC data into a clear audit document.
• Prioritise technical issues by impact and effort.
• Produce an action plan and timeline suitable for stakeholders and engineers.

When to Use

Call this Skill when the user:

• Requests a technical SEO audit or site health check.
• Mentions issues with:
  • Indexability or crawl coverage.
  • Core Web Vitals and page speed.
  • Structured data and rich results.
  • Mobile usability.
  • International SEO and hreflang.
  • Migrations, HTTPS, or security headers.

It can also be used to:

• Interpret or refine an existing audit.
• Create a condensed executive summary from detailed findings.

Expected Inputs

Any subset of:

• Crawl data (e.g. Screaming Frog, Sitebulb):
  • URLs, status codes, depth, titles, meta descriptions, headings, canonicals, etc.
• Google Search Console data:
  • Coverage, Page Indexing, Core Web Vitals, Enhancements, Mobile Usability, Crawl stats.
• Performance diagnostics:
  • PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse reports.
• International SEO information:
  • Hreflang implementation, language/region strategy.
• Security and HTTPS status.

The more specific the data, the more concrete the recommendations should be.

Typical Outputs

• A partially or fully populated technical SEO audit document following:
  • Audit overview and executive summary.
  • Sections for crawlability/indexability, architecture, on-page SEO, CWV & performance, mobile, structured data, content quality/duplication, HTTPS/security, international SEO, crawl budget.
  • An action plan split by timeframe and priority.
• A prioritised issue list with:
  • Severity (critical/high/medium/low).
  • Affected areas.
  • Recommended fixes and expected impact.

Core Behaviours

1. Anchor to the Audit Template

Use templates/technical-seo-audit.md as the canonical structure:

• Populate sections with whatever data is available.
• Clearly mark sections as “Not assessed (no data provided)” if inputs are missing.
• Use checklists and tables to make issues and recommendations scannable.

2. Separate Observation from Recommendation

For each section:

• Observation:
  • What the data shows (counts, statuses, distributions).
  • Where issues cluster (e.g. specific directories, templates, or page types).
• Recommendation:
  • Specific, actionable fixes.
  • Who should act (developer vs content/editorial).
  • Priority and suggested timeframe.

Avoid mixing raw data, interpretation, and action in a single unstructured paragraph.

3. Prioritise by Impact and Risk

When multiple issues are present:

• Treat as critical:
  • Site-wide blocking in robots.txt.
  • Widespread 5xx or 4xx errors on important pages.
  • Severe Core Web Vitals failures on key templates.
  • Major HTTPS or security misconfigurations.
• Treat as high:
  • Large volumes of non-indexed important pages.
  • Significant mobile usability issues.
  • Missing or broken structured data on high-value content.
• Treat as medium/low:
  • Smaller duplication issues.
  • Non-critical schema gaps.
  • Optimisations that primarily improve quality-of-life or future-proofing.

Reflect this in the action plan section of the template.

4. Use Checklists to Drive Coverage

Walk through the major sections in order (matching the template):

• Crawlability & Indexability.
• Site Architecture & Internal Linking.
• On-Page SEO (titles, meta, headings).
• Page Speed & Core Web Vitals.
• Mobile Optimisation.
• Structured Data & Rich Results.
• Content Quality & Duplication.
• HTTPS & Security.
• International SEO (if applicable).
• Crawl Budget & Server Performance.

For each, use or adapt the template’s checklists to:

• Identify missing or misconfigured elements.
• Capture sample URLs and patterns.
• Tie issues to recommended fixes.

5. Tie Technical Issues to Business Impact

When making recommendations:

• Explain why the issue matters:
  • Lost indexation → fewer pages able to rank.
  • Poor CWV → lower user satisfaction and potential ranking impact.
  • Broken schema → loss of rich results and SERP real estate.
• Indicate which pages or sections are most affected:
  • High-traffic templates.
  • Conversion-critical flows.
  • Strategic content hubs.

This helps stakeholders prioritise engineering work.

Dependencies & Related Files

This Skill depends on:

• templates/technical-seo-audit.md – the primary audit document template.
• skills/seo-os.SKILL.md – for global principles and routing.
• Potentially skills/serp-gap-analysis.SKILL.md – to correlate technical issues with performance patterns.

When asked to “run” an audit, use the template’s sections as your outline and ensure the final output is easy for a human to copy into their own documents.