Claude Technical SEO Audit Checklist Prompt
You are a technical SEO engineer who has fixed critical crawl and indexing issues for sites with millions of pages.
Category
🔍 SEO
Difficulty
Advanced
Models
2
Last Updated
2026-06-28
Works with
📄 Example output
⚠️ Common Mistakes
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⚙️ Fill in your variables
📋 Prompt
You are a technical SEO engineer who has fixed critical crawl and indexing issues for sites with millions of pages.
Website: [website url]
Site type: [site type — static/WordPress/Shopify/Next.js/custom]
CMS: [CMS — if applicable]
Main concerns: [biggest seo concerns — indexing/speed/crawl budget/duplicates/Core Web Vitals]
Task: Complete technical SEO audit guide:
SECTION 1 — CRAWL & INDEXING:
Checklist of 15 issues + how to diagnose + how to fix each
SECTION 2 — CORE WEB VITALS:
LCP, INP, CLS — what each means, how to measure, top 5 fixes for [site type]
SECTION 3 — SITE ARCHITECTURE:
URL structure, canonicalisation, hreflang, pagination
SECTION 4 — TECHNICAL QUICK WINS:
10 fixes that take under 1 hour and have immediate impact
SECTION 5 — PRIORITY MATRIX:
High impact + low effort → High impact + high effort → Low impact → Ignore
Format: Checklist-style with diagnosis commands/tools for each item.
Website: [website url]
Site type: [site type — static/WordPress/Shopify/Next.js/custom]
CMS: [CMS — if applicable]
Main concerns: [biggest seo concerns — indexing/speed/crawl budget/duplicates/Core Web Vitals]
Task: Complete technical SEO audit guide:
SECTION 1 — CRAWL & INDEXING:
Checklist of 15 issues + how to diagnose + how to fix each
SECTION 2 — CORE WEB VITALS:
LCP, INP, CLS — what each means, how to measure, top 5 fixes for [site type]
SECTION 3 — SITE ARCHITECTURE:
URL structure, canonicalisation, hreflang, pagination
SECTION 4 — TECHNICAL QUICK WINS:
10 fixes that take under 1 hour and have immediate impact
SECTION 5 — PRIORITY MATRIX:
High impact + low effort → High impact + high effort → Low impact → Ignore
Format: Checklist-style with diagnosis commands/tools for each item.
TECHNICAL SEO AUDIT: Cloudflare Pages Static Site
SECTION 1 — CRAWL & INDEXING
✅/❌ CHECK 1: Robots.txt accessible
Diagnose: curl https://yoursite.com/robots.txt — should return 200, not 404
Fix: Create robots.txt in root. Minimum content: User-agent: * / Allow: / / Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
✅/❌ CHECK 2: Sitemap submitted and indexed
Diagnose: Google Search Console → Sitemaps report → Check submitted + indexed count
Fix: Submit sitemap at search.google.com/search-console. If indexed << submitted, check for crawl errors on missing pages.
✅/❌ CHECK 3: No accidental noindex tags
Diagnose: Screaming Frog crawl → Directives tab → filter 'noindex' — these pages won't rank
Fix: Remove <meta name='robots' content='noindex'> from any page you want indexed
✅/❌ CHECK 4: Canonical tags correct
Diagnose: Each page should have <link rel='canonical' href='[self-URL]'> — check for cross-domain canonicals or wrong URLs
Fix: Correct canonical in the head of each page to match the exact URL Google should index
CORE WEB VITALS FOR CLOUDFLARE PAGES:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint — target <2.5s):
Fix 1: Serve images in WebP/AVIF format — typically saves 30–50% of image weight
Fix 2: Preload the LCP image: <link rel='preload' as='image' href='hero.webp'>
Fix 3: Use Cloudflare's image optimisation (Polish) — free on all plans
INP (Interaction to Next Paint — target <200ms):
Fix: Defer non-critical JavaScript. On a static site with vanilla JS: move scripts to before </body>, add defer attribute
SECTION 1 — CRAWL & INDEXING
✅/❌ CHECK 1: Robots.txt accessible
Diagnose: curl https://yoursite.com/robots.txt — should return 200, not 404
Fix: Create robots.txt in root. Minimum content: User-agent: * / Allow: / / Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
✅/❌ CHECK 2: Sitemap submitted and indexed
Diagnose: Google Search Console → Sitemaps report → Check submitted + indexed count
Fix: Submit sitemap at search.google.com/search-console. If indexed << submitted, check for crawl errors on missing pages.
✅/❌ CHECK 3: No accidental noindex tags
Diagnose: Screaming Frog crawl → Directives tab → filter 'noindex' — these pages won't rank
Fix: Remove <meta name='robots' content='noindex'> from any page you want indexed
✅/❌ CHECK 4: Canonical tags correct
Diagnose: Each page should have <link rel='canonical' href='[self-URL]'> — check for cross-domain canonicals or wrong URLs
Fix: Correct canonical in the head of each page to match the exact URL Google should index
CORE WEB VITALS FOR CLOUDFLARE PAGES:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint — target <2.5s):
Fix 1: Serve images in WebP/AVIF format — typically saves 30–50% of image weight
Fix 2: Preload the LCP image: <link rel='preload' as='image' href='hero.webp'>
Fix 3: Use Cloudflare's image optimisation (Polish) — free on all plans
INP (Interaction to Next Paint — target <200ms):
Fix: Defer non-critical JavaScript. On a static site with vanilla JS: move scripts to before </body>, add defer attribute
🏆
💡 Pro Tips
Best model for this prompt
Claude
Claude (Opus 4 / Sonnet 4)
Run Google Search Console's URL Inspection on your 10 most important pages first — it shows exactly what Google sees
Core Web Vitals are measured in the field (real user data), not just lab (test tool) — focus on PageSpeed Insights' field data tab
Fixing duplicate content with canonical tags is faster than deleting pages — and safer if those pages have backlinks
A/B test CWV fixes on a subset of pages before rolling out site-wide — some fixes have unexpected effects
Blocking CSS and JS in robots.txt — Google can't render your pages without these files, dramatically hurting rankings
Using 302 temporary redirects instead of 301 permanent redirects for permanent moves — 302s don't pass link equity
Pagination without rel='next'/'prev' — search engines may not understand the relationship between paginated pages
Ignoring mobile-first indexing — Google uses the mobile version of your site to determine rankings; desktop performance is secondary
- How often should I run a technical SEO audit?Full technical audit: quarterly. Core Web Vitals monitoring: continuous (set up Google Search Console alerts). After any major site changes (redesign, migration, new CMS): immediately. After Google core algorithm updates: check for new indexing issues.
- What's the best free technical SEO tool?Google Search Console is irreplaceable and free. Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) is the best crawler. PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals. Chrome DevTools for render and performance diagnosis. These four cover 90% of technical SEO needs.
- What are Core Web Vitals and do they really affect rankings?Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) measure real-user loading, interactivity, and visual stability. They are confirmed Google ranking factors since 2021. Sites with 'Good' CWV have a ranking advantage over competing sites with 'Poor' or 'Needs Improvement' scores.
- My pages are indexed but not ranking. Is this a technical issue?Usually not. Indexing is a technical issue; ranking is primarily a content, authority, and relevance issue. If pages are indexed (confirm in Search Console), focus on content quality, keyword targeting, and backlinks rather than technical fixes.