How Can You Find and Fix SEO Issues on Your Website?

You can find and fix SEO issues on your website by working through four questions in order. Can search engines reach and index your pages? Do those pages load quickly and work well on a phone? Does each page clearly show what it is about? And does your content match what your customers are actually searching for? Check each one with a few free tools, write down every problem you find, then fix the issues that affect the most pages or the most revenue first.

This guide is for business owners, marketing managers, and anyone who looks after a website without being a full time SEO specialist. You don’t need to write code or buy expensive software.

Why SEO Issues Hide in Plain Sight

Most websites carry a few problems nobody has noticed. A page was set to “noindex” during a redesign and never switched back. A product category crawls along on mobile connections. Three blog posts compete for the same search and none of them wins. Your site looks fine when you open it, yet traffic slowly stalls and nobody can say why.

Search engines judge your site in ways you can’t see by browsing it like a visitor. A page can look polished and still be invisible to Google because of one line in a settings file. So the goal is to look at your site the way a search engine does, then compare that with how real people experience it.

Set Up Your Tools First

You don’t need a big budget to run a solid check. Three tools cover most of what matters, and each has a free option. Pair them with your analytics platform so you know which pages bring in leads, because a broken page that drives a quarter of your enquiries is an emergency, while one nobody visits is a small job.

Google Search Console

Search Console is a free Google service that shows how your site appears in search. It tells you which pages are indexed and why others aren’t, which searches bring people to you, and whether Google has found speed or mobile problems. Add your website as a property, verify ownership, and submit your XML sitemap. The reports you’ll use most are Pages, Performance, Core Web Vitals, and Manual Actions.

A Site Crawler

A crawler is software that visits your pages one after another, the way a search engine would, and reports what it finds. It’s the quickest way to spot broken links, missing titles, duplicate pages, and redirect problems across hundreds of URLs. Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a popular option, and its free version crawls up to 500 URLs, enough for many small business sites.

PageSpeed Insights

This free Google tool scores a page’s speed and lists specific things slowing it down. It shows lab data from a simulated test and field data from real Chrome users. When field data is available, trust it over the lab score, because it reflects what your visitors actually experience.

Step 1: Make Sure Search Engines Can Find and Index Your Pages

If a page isn’t in Google’s index, nothing else you do for it matters. That’s why indexing comes first. This step also tends to reveal the most dramatic problems, so give it your full attention.

Check the Pages Report in Search Console

Open the Pages report in Search Console. It splits your URLs into indexed and not indexed, and it gives a reason for each group that isn’t indexed. Don’t panic when you see a long list. Many of those reasons are perfectly normal, such as pages that redirect elsewhere or old URLs that you removed on purpose.

What you’re looking for are pages that should be indexed but aren’t. Pay close attention to these labels:

Excluded by noindex tag: the page tells search engines to stay away. Make sure that’s intentional.
Blocked by robots.txt: a rule in your robots file stops Google from crawling the page.
Crawled, currently not indexed: Google visited but decided the page wasn’t worth adding. This often points to thin or repetitive content.
Discovered, currently not indexed: Google knows the URL exists but hasn’t visited yet. On smaller sites this can suggest weak internal linking.
Duplicate without user selected canonical: Google found several similar pages and picked one itself, which may not be the one you want.

Here’s an example. Imagine a regional furniture retailer whose organic sales fell by a third after a relaunch. The Pages report shows the whole “Dining Tables” category under “Excluded by noindex tag.” The developer had applied that setting on the test site and it carried over to the live one. Removing it and requesting reindexing fixed the problem within weeks. No new content, no new links, just one setting.

Look for Accidental Blocks

Three things commonly stop good pages from showing up. First, open your robots.txt file by typing your domain followed by /robots.txt into a browser, and ask your developer about any line that disallows your whole site or an important folder. Second, view the source of a key page and search for “noindex.” Third, check canonical tags, which tell Google which version of a page is the main one. A canonical pointing at the wrong URL can make Google drop the page you care about.

Review Your XML Sitemap

Your sitemap should list the important, indexable pages you want found, and leave out redirects, error pages, and anything marked noindex. Compare its URL count with the number Search Console reports as indexed. If the sitemap lists 800 pages and only 300 are indexed, find out why before you publish anything new.

Fix Broken Links and Redirect Problems

Run your crawler and sort the results by status code. A 404 means the page wasn’t found, a 301 is a permanent redirect, and a 302 is a temporary one. Watch for these patterns:

Broken internal links: update them to point at a working page.
Redirect chains: page A redirects to B, which redirects to C. Link straight to C instead.
Temporary redirects used permanently: if a page has moved for good, use a 301.
Deleted pages with traffic or backlinks: redirect them to the closest relevant page.

A few 404 errors won’t hurt your rankings on their own, since every site has some. The real cost appears when valuable pages break.

Step 2: Fix Speed and Mobile Problems

Once search engines can reach your pages, the next question is whether visitors will enjoy using them. Google uses the mobile version of your site as the main version for indexing, so the phone experience is the one that counts most.

Understand Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to describe real user experience:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long the main content takes to appear. A good score is 2.5 seconds or less.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. A good score is 200 milliseconds or less.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the page jumps around while loading. A good score is 0.1 or less.

You’ll find these in the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. Start with the pages marked poor and note which templates they share. If all your product pages fail on LCP, you probably have one shared problem to fix, not hundreds.

Apply the Common Fixes

The same few causes account for most slow sites. Check them in this order:

Oversized images. A photo that’s 4 MB when 200 KB would look identical is the most common culprit. Resize images to their display size and use modern formats such as WebP.
Too many scripts. Chat widgets, tracking tags, and unused plugins add weight. Remove what you no longer use.
No caching or compression. Ask your host whether both are switched on.
Slow hosting. If your server responds slowly even for simple pages, better hosting may be the only real fix.
Layout jumps. Set width and height on images, ads, and banners so the page doesn’t shift as they load.

Rerun PageSpeed Insights after each change so you can see what worked.

Test on a Real Phone

Tools only tell part of the story. Pick up your own phone, switch off wifi, and try to complete the main action you want visitors to take, such as filling in a form or buying something. Watch for tiny text, buttons packed too close together, pop ups that cover content, and menus that fail to open.

Step 3: Clean Up the On Page Basics

On page elements are the parts of a page that tell search engines and readers what it’s about. They’re easy to fix and often neglected, which makes this step a good source of quick wins.

Title Tags

The title tag is the clickable headline in search results. Each page should have its own unique title that describes the content clearly and includes the main topic naturally. Keep titles around 60 characters so they don’t get cut off.

Your crawler will flag titles that are missing, duplicated, too long, or too short. Duplicates matter most. A dental clinic with ten service pages all titled “Our Services | Smith Dental” misses the chance to show up for ten different searches.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description is the short summary under the title in search results. It doesn’t directly improve rankings, but a clear, specific description can make more people click. Aim for roughly 150 to 160 characters, describe what the visitor will get, and write it like a sentence a human would say.

Start with your most visited pages and the ones that appear in search often but get few clicks. Search Console’s Performance report shows both.

Headings

Every page needs one clear main heading (H1) that says what it is about, followed by subheadings (H2, H3) in a logical order. Crawlers will flag pages with no H1 or with several.

Image Alt Text

Alt text is a short description of an image. It helps people who use screen readers and gives search engines context. Describe the image plainly: “Oak dining table seating six in a bright kitchen” is useful. A string of keywords is not.

Step 4: Audit Your Content

Technical fixes get your pages seen. Content decides whether they deserve to rank. This is the step where business knowledge matters more than tools, because you know your customers better than any software does.

Find Thin and Outdated Pages

Export your pages from your crawler and add traffic data from analytics. Sort by pages with little or no traffic over the last year, then ask a direct question about each: does this page help anyone? You have four sensible options. Improve it with more detail and current information. Merge it with a similar page and redirect the old URL. Remove it if it has no value, redirecting it if it has backlinks. Or leave it alone if it serves a purpose, such as a terms page.

Outdated content deserves special care. A guide that mentions last decade’s regulations or a pricing page showing old figures hurts trust as much as it hurts rankings.

Spot Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization happens when several pages target the same search, so they compete with each other and none reaches the top. To check, open the Performance report in Search Console, click a query that matters to you, and switch to the Pages tab. If two or three of your URLs appear for it, pick the best page, strengthen it, and merge or rework the others.

Match Search Intent

Search intent is the reason behind a search. Someone typing “how to fix a leaking tap” wants instructions, while “emergency plumber near me” means they want to call someone now. Search for your main terms and look at what already ranks. If the top results are guides and your page is a sales pitch, rewrite it or create a page that fits.

Step 5: Strengthen Your Site Structure and Internal Links

Search engines follow links to find pages and to judge which ones matter most. A messy structure can bury your best content even if each page is fine on its own.

Find Orphan Pages

An orphan page has no internal links pointing to it, so visitors can’t browse to it and search engines struggle to discover it. Compare the URLs in your sitemap with the ones your crawler reached by following links. Any sitemap page the crawler never found is probably an orphan. Fix it by linking to it from related pages.

Keep Key Pages Close and Link Clearly

Click depth is the number of clicks from your homepage to a page. Keep your key pages within three clicks, since pages buried deeper tend to get crawled less often. Also use descriptive anchor text, the clickable words in a link. “Click here” tells nobody anything, while “our guide to commercial cleaning schedules” tells readers and search engines what is on the other side.

Step 6: Check Trust Signals and Security

Confirm that your whole site loads over HTTPS, that the HTTP version redirects to it, and that no secure page loads images or scripts over an insecure connection. Keep your business name, address, and phone number consistent across your website and your Google Business Profile. Finally, open the Manual Actions and Security Issues reports in Search Console. Both should show no problems, and if they don’t, make that your top priority.

How to Prioritize What You Find

After a full check you may have 80 issues, and trying to fix them all at once stalls projects. Sort each one by two questions: how many pages or how much revenue does it affect, and how hard is it to fix?

Work through the list in this order:

Anything blocking indexing or security. Noindex mistakes, robots.txt blocks, and security warnings come first because they can erase traffic completely.
Broken pages and redirects on valuable URLs. Pages that bring in leads or have strong backlinks.
Sitewide speed and mobile problems. These affect every visitor.
Quick on page wins. Missing titles, duplicated descriptions, and empty alt text on your top pages.
Content improvements. Merging, updating, and rewriting pages, starting with the ones closest to ranking well.

Keep a simple spreadsheet with the issue, affected pages, impact, effort, and owner, and mark each item open, in progress, or done. Make changes in small batches and note the date of each, so you know where to look if traffic shifts. Give updates a few weeks before judging results.

A Simple Monthly SEO Check

You don’t need to repeat a full audit every month. A short routine of about an hour is enough to catch new problems early.

Monthly checklist:

Open Search Console and look for new indexing errors, manual actions, or security warnings.
Review the Core Web Vitals report for pages that have moved into the poor group.
Check your top 10 pages by traffic and confirm they still load correctly on mobile.
Scan for new 404 errors on pages that used to work.
Look at the Performance report for pages with a sharp drop in clicks.

Once a quarter, run your full crawler check and review content that needs updating.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I run an SEO audit?

Run a full audit once or twice a year, and do a lighter check every month. Run an extra one after any major change, such as a redesign, platform migration, or large content update, because those events cause most serious SEO mistakes.

What are the most common SEO issues on business websites?

The most common problems are slow mobile pages, duplicate or missing title tags, broken links, pages accidentally blocked from indexing, thin content, and several pages competing for the same search. Most of these can be found in an hour with Search Console and a crawler.

Can I fix SEO issues myself or do I need a specialist?

You can handle many fixes yourself, including titles, descriptions, alt text, internal links, and content updates. Issues involving server settings, site speed, redirects at scale, or structured data usually need a developer. A specialist is worth hiring when the problems are large or your traffic has dropped sharply.

Conclusion

Finding and fixing SEO issues doesn’t require a technical background. It requires a method. Check that search engines can index your pages, make sure the site is fast on a phone, tidy your titles and headings, review whether your content matches what people want, and keep your structure and security in order. Then rank what you find and fix the biggest problems first.

If you only do one thing after reading this, open Google Search Console today and look at the Pages report. It takes ten minutes, and it’s the most likely place to find a problem that has been quietly costing you traffic.