How to spot Technical SEO Problems yourself (before you call in a Consultant)

Technical SEO sounds complicated from the outside. And to be fair, sometimes it is. But you don’t need to be an expert to notice when something’s off. If you’re a business owner or run your own website, there’s plenty you can do before calling in outside help. The key is knowing where to look and when it’s time to bring someone in.

This isn’t about turning you into a full-time SEO. It’s about giving you a few ways to check your site’s health using free tools and a bit of logic. These are the same things I’d ask you about if you got in touch. If you find something worrying, I can help you dig deeper and fix it properly. But let’s see how far you get on your own first.

Start With a Simple Google Search

Go to Google and use a search operator:

site:yourdomain.com (replace with your website)

This shows you how many of your pages Google has indexed. Is the number close to what you’d expect? If your site has 100 pages but Google is showing thousands, something is probably wrong. You might have duplicate content, faceted URLs, or tag pages causing bloat. If it’s showing far fewer than expected, Google might not be finding or indexing everything properly.

This isn’t a complete picture, but it’s enough to tell you whether you need to take a closer look.

Pro tip: Use your XML sitemap as a reference point. It tells Google which URLs you expect to be indexed. Now run a simple site:yourdomain.com search in Google and compare the number of indexed pages to the total URLs in your sitemap. If the numbers are way off, there’s a problem worth investigating. You can also use Google Search Console

Run Your Key Pages Through PageSpeed Insights

Speed matters, not just for users but for search engines too. Go to PageSpeed Insights and test your homepage, your most important service page, and a blog post.

Look at the mobile results. Focus on three things:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

You do not need a perfect score. Most websites don’t have one. But if the page takes ages to load or is jumping around while loading, you have room for improvement. These things are fixable, but they can be hard to spot unless you’re looking for them.

Check What Google Search Console Is Telling You

If you’ve got Search Console set up, you’ve already got access to some of the best data available. Go to the “Pages” section under “Indexing”. Look for any pages marked as:

• Discovered – currently not indexed
• Crawled – currently not indexed
• Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical

These are clues. They suggest Google can see your content, but is deciding not to show it in search. There could be all kinds of reasons. It might be a technical block, a rendering issue, or a quality signal. You don’t need to know the exact cause just yet. You just need to notice when something’s not adding up.

Test If Google Can See Your Content

If your website uses JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue, you need to check whether Google is actually seeing the content. In Google Search Console, use the URL Inspection tool. Inspect a key page, then click “View Crawled Page” and look at the rendered screenshot.

Is your content visible? If the screenshot is empty, or only shows your navigation, then your content is probably being hidden from Google during rendering. That is a visibility problem, not a ranking one. And it needs fixing.

Try a Simple Site Crawl

Screaming Frog SEO Spider offers a free version of their SEO Spider that crawls up to 500 URLs. Download it and crawl your site. You are not expected to understand every metric. Just look out for:

• Multiple versions of your homepage (www vs non-www, trailing slash vs non-trailing slash)
• Titles and descriptions are missing
• 404 errors
• Redirect chains

These are the early signs of a mess under the surface. If you can already see things aren’t right at a glance, chances are there’s more you are not seeing.

Look for Index Bloat, Crawl Waste or Duplicate Paths

Have a look at your main navigation, internal linking, or any faceted category pages. Are you creating multiple URLs that show the same content? Filters, sort options, tags and date archives can all create URL bloat.

Do your product pages have long URL strings with parameters? Are you linking to pages like ?sort=price or ?ref=homepagebanner across the site?

If you are, Google might be wasting time crawling things that don’t matter, while missing the pages that do.

Ask Yourself: Do You Understand Your Own Setup?

If someone asked you what your robots.txt file is doing, could you explain it? Do you know where your canonical tags are pointing? Could you say with confidence what pages are being redirected and why?

Most business owners can’t. That is not a criticism. But it is a sign that you might need a second pair of eyes. Because these little details are what make or break your visibility in search.

When It’s Time to Call in a Technical SEO Consultant

You’ve run some tests. You’ve found things that feel off. Maybe you even spotted a few major problems. That’s good. That means you’re paying attention.

But if you are not sure what to do next, that is where I come in. I work with business owners, marketing teams, and developers to help them figure out what’s holding them back and how to fix it.

I don’t show up with a long checklist or a fluffy audit. I dig into your setup, find the real issues, and help you solve them properly. I write developer-ready tickets. I explain things clearly. I follow through and check the work. And if you are building something new, I’ll help you avoid the common pitfalls from day one.

You do not need to know everything. You just need to know when you are out of your depth.

So if your rankings have dipped, your team is stuck, or your website just doesn’t feel like it’s performing as well as it should, get in touch.

I’ll help you figure it out. That’s what I do best.