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TECHNICAL SEO
8 MIN READ
March 8, 2026

How to Check Your Website's SEO: 10 Critical Factors in 2026

A no-fluff guide to checking your website's SEO — what to look for, what each metric means, and how to fix problems fast.

“The fastest way to improve your rankings is not to publish more content. It is to check what is already broken and fix it.”

Knowing how to check your website's SEO is one of the most valuable skills any founder, marketer, or developer can have. Most of the traffic you are missing is not because you need more content — it is because something specific and fixable is holding your existing pages back.

This guide covers the 10 most critical SEO factors to check, how to measure each one, and what to do when you find a problem.

### How to Check Website SEO: The 10-Factor Framework

#### Factor 1: Crawl Errors

Before anything else, check whether Google can actually reach your pages.

Crawl errors occur when Google tries to visit a page on your site and gets an error response — most commonly a 404 (page not found) or 5xx (server error). These waste your crawl budget and signal poor site quality.

How to check: Google Search Console → Coverage report. RankyPulse also surfaces crawl errors during its audit.

Fix: Redirect the broken URLs to relevant live pages, or restore the content if it was accidentally deleted.

#### Factor 2: Title Tags

Every page on your site needs a unique, keyword-rich title tag under 60 characters. Title tags are the most direct signal you can send to Google about what a page is about.

How to check: View the page source (`Ctrl+U` in Chrome) and look for ``. Or run a full audit — RankyPulse checks every page automatically.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Write a title in the format: Primary Keyword — Secondary Keyword | Brand Name.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 3: Page Speed (Core Web Vitals)</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Google uses three Core Web Vitals to measure page speed as a ranking factor: LCP (loading), INP (interactivity), and CLS (visual stability). If your pages are slow, you are already at a disadvantage over faster competitors.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Google PageSpeed Insights, or run a RankyPulse audit which includes performance analysis.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Common causes are unoptimised images, render-blocking JavaScript, and no CDN. Fix the biggest LCP element first — it is usually a hero image.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 4: Mobile Friendliness</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning the mobile version of your site is what gets ranked. If your site is desktop-only, you are invisible to mobile searchers.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool, or check in Chrome DevTools (toggle device mode).</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Ensure your CSS uses responsive breakpoints. Test at 375px width (iPhone SE) as your minimum threshold.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 5: Duplicate Content</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">When multiple URLs on your site serve the same or very similar content, Google does not know which one to rank — so it may rank none of them. This commonly happens with: - WWW vs non-WWW versions of your domain - HTTP vs HTTPS - URLs with and without trailing slashes - Filtered or sorted pages (e.g., `/products?sort=price`)</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Check canonical tags on your pages. Search `site:yourdomain.com` in Google and look for unexpected duplicate URLs.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Implement canonical tags on every page, pointing to the preferred version.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 6: Internal Links</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Internal links are the roads that connect your content. Orphan pages — pages with no internal links pointing to them — are essentially invisible to search engines even if their content is excellent.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> RankyPulse's internal link checker shows which pages have no incoming internal links.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Add contextual links from your highest-traffic pages to your orphan pages. Use descriptive anchor text (not "click here").</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 7: Meta Descriptions</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Every page should have a unique meta description of 120–155 characters. While it does not affect rankings directly, a compelling meta description improves your click-through rate — and higher CTR is a positive ranking signal.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> View page source and search for `meta name="description"`. Or run a RankyPulse audit.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Write meta descriptions that lead with the user benefit and include the target keyword naturally.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 8: Schema Markup</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Schema markup (structured data) helps Google understand your content at a semantic level. It is also required to appear in rich results — those enhanced listings with star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, and recipe info that get dramatically higher click-through rates.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Google's Rich Results Test tool, or check your page source for `application/ld+json` script tags.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Add Article schema to blog posts, Product schema to product pages, FAQ schema to pages with questions, and Organization schema to your homepage.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 9: Keyword Relevance</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Each page should be clearly targeting one primary keyword, with related secondary keywords supporting it. If a page is trying to rank for 10 unrelated terms, it will likely rank well for none of them.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Read the page. Is the primary keyword in the title tag, H1, first paragraph, and URL slug? If not, it is not optimised.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Audit your top pages for keyword focus. Update title tags, H1s, and opening paragraphs to lead with the target keyword.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">#### Factor 10: Backlink Profile</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Backlinks (links from other websites to yours) are still one of the most powerful ranking signals. But not all backlinks are equal — links from high-authority, relevant domains count far more than links from low-quality directories.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">How to check:</strong> Google Search Console → Links report. For deeper analysis, use RankyPulse's backlink checker.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Fix:</strong> Create content worth linking to (data-driven guides, original research, tools). Reach out to publications in your space. Unlink from spammy or irrelevant referring domains.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">---</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">### Putting It All Together</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">The fastest way to check your website's SEO across all 10 factors at once is to run an automated audit. Manual checking is time-consuming and easy to miss — an automated tool scans every page in seconds.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6"><strong class="text-white font-semibold">Run a free check on [RankyPulse](https://rankypulse.com):</strong> Enter your domain, and you will get an SEO score plus a prioritised list of issues to fix — no signup required.</p><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-300 leading-relaxed text-base mb-6">Start with the top three issues the audit surfaces. Fix those. Re-run the audit. Track your score over time. This is the discipline that separates sites that grow their organic traffic from those that plateau.</p></div><div class="mt-16 p-8 bg-indigo-500/[0.08] border border-indigo-500/20 rounded-2xl text-center"><h3 class="font-['Fraunces'] text-2xl font-bold text-white mb-2">See this in action on your site</h3><p class="font-['DM_Sans'] text-gray-400 text-sm mb-6">Free audit. No signup. 30 seconds.</p><a class="inline-flex items-center gap-2 px-6 py-3 bg-indigo-500 text-white rounded-xl font-['DM_Sans'] font-semibold text-sm hover:bg-indigo-400 transition-colors" href="/">Run free audit →</a></div><div class="mt-10 text-center"><a class="inline-flex items-center gap-2 font-['DM_Sans'] text-sm text-gray-500 hover:text-white transition-colors" href="/blog"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="14" height="14" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-arrow-left" aria-hidden="true"><path d="m12 19-7-7 7-7"></path><path d="M19 12H5"></path></svg>Back to all posts</a></div></div></main><!--$--><!--/$--><section aria-label="Notifications alt+T" tabindex="-1" aria-live="polite" aria-relevant="additions text" aria-atomic="false"></section><!--$!--><template data-dgst="BAILOUT_TO_CLIENT_SIDE_RENDERING"></template><!--/$--><script 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how to check your website's SEO is one of the most valuable skills any founder, marketer, or developer can have. Most of the traffic you are missing is not because you need more content — it is because something specific and fixable is holding your existing pages back.\n\nThis guide covers the 10 most critical SEO factors to check, how to measure each one, and what to do when you find a problem.\n\n### How to Check Website SEO: The 10-Factor Framework\n\n#### Factor 1: Crawl Errors\n\nBefore anything else, check whether Google can actually reach your pages.\n\nCrawl errors occur when Google tries to visit a page on your site and gets an error response — most commonly a 404 (page not found) or 5xx (server error). These waste your crawl budget and signal poor site quality.\n\n**How to check:** Google Search Console → Coverage report. RankyPulse also surfaces crawl errors during its audit.\n\n**Fix:** Redirect the broken URLs to relevant live pages, or restore the content if it was accidentally deleted.\n\n#### Factor 2: Title Tags\n\nEvery page on your site needs a unique, keyword-rich title tag under 60 characters. Title tags are the most direct signal you can send to Google about what a page is about.\n\n**How to check:** View the page source (`Ctrl+U` in Chrome) and look for `\u003ctitle\u003e`. Or run a full audit — RankyPulse checks every page automatically.\n\n**Fix:** Write a title in the format: Primary Keyword — Secondary Keyword | Brand Name.\n\n#### Factor 3: Page Speed (Core Web Vitals)\n\nGoogle uses three Core Web Vitals to measure page speed as a ranking factor: LCP (loading), INP (interactivity), and CLS (visual stability). If your pages are slow, you are already at a disadvantage over faster competitors.\n\n**How to check:** Google PageSpeed Insights, or run a RankyPulse audit which includes performance analysis.\n\n**Fix:** Common causes are unoptimised images, render-blocking JavaScript, and no CDN. Fix the biggest LCP element first — it is usually a hero image.\n\n#### Factor 4: Mobile Friendliness\n\nGoogle uses mobile-first indexing, meaning the mobile version of your site is what gets ranked. If your site is desktop-only, you are invisible to mobile searchers.\n\n**How to check:** Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool, or check in Chrome DevTools (toggle device mode).\n\n**Fix:** Ensure your CSS uses responsive breakpoints. Test at 375px width (iPhone SE) as your minimum threshold.\n\n#### Factor 5: Duplicate Content\n\nWhen multiple URLs on your site serve the same or very similar content, Google does not know which one to rank — so it may rank none of them. This commonly happens with:\n- WWW vs non-WWW versions of your domain\n- HTTP vs HTTPS\n- URLs with and without trailing slashes\n- Filtered or sorted pages (e.g., `/products?sort=price`)\n\n**How to check:** Check canonical tags on your pages. Search `site:yourdomain.com` in Google and look for unexpected duplicate URLs.\n\n**Fix:** Implement canonical tags on every page, pointing to the preferred version.\n\n#### Factor 6: Internal Links\n\nInternal links are the roads that connect your content. Orphan pages — pages with no internal links pointing to them — are essentially invisible to search engines even if their content is excellent.\n\n**How to check:** RankyPulse's internal link checker shows which pages have no incoming internal links.\n\n**Fix:** Add contextual links from your highest-traffic pages to your orphan pages. Use descriptive anchor text (not \"click here\").\n\n#### Factor 7: Meta Descriptions\n\nEvery page should have a unique meta description of 120–155 characters. While it does not affect rankings directly, a compelling meta description improves your click-through rate — and higher CTR is a positive ranking signal.\n\n**How to check:** View page source and search for `meta name=\"description\"`. Or run a RankyPulse audit.\n\n**Fix:** Write meta descriptions that lead with the user benefit and include the target keyword naturally.\n\n#### Factor 8: Schema Markup\n\nSchema markup (structured data) helps Google understand your content at a semantic level. It is also required to appear in rich results — those enhanced listings with star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, and recipe info that get dramatically higher click-through rates.\n\n**How to check:** Google's Rich Results Test tool, or check your page source for `application/ld+json` script tags.\n\n**Fix:** Add Article schema to blog posts, Product schema to product pages, FAQ schema to pages with questions, and Organization schema to your homepage.\n\n#### Factor 9: Keyword Relevance\n\nEach page should be clearly targeting one primary keyword, with related secondary keywords supporting it. If a page is trying to rank for 10 unrelated terms, it will likely rank well for none of them.\n\n**How to check:** Read the page. Is the primary keyword in the title tag, H1, first paragraph, and URL slug? If not, it is not optimised.\n\n**Fix:** Audit your top pages for keyword focus. Update title tags, H1s, and opening paragraphs to lead with the target keyword.\n\n#### Factor 10: Backlink Profile\n\nBacklinks (links from other websites to yours) are still one of the most powerful ranking signals. But not all backlinks are equal — links from high-authority, relevant domains count far more than links from low-quality directories.\n\n**How to check:** Google Search Console → Links report. For deeper analysis, use RankyPulse's backlink checker.\n\n**Fix:** Create content worth linking to (data-driven guides, original research, tools). Reach out to publications in your space. Unlink from spammy or irrelevant referring domains.\n\n---\n\n### Putting It All Together\n\nThe fastest way to check your website's SEO across all 10 factors at once is to run an automated audit. Manual checking is time-consuming and easy to miss — an automated tool scans every page in seconds.\n\n**Run a free check on [RankyPulse](https://rankypulse.com):** Enter your domain, and you will get an SEO score plus a prioritised list of issues to fix — no signup required.\n\nStart with the top three issues the audit surfaces. Fix those. Re-run the audit. Track your score over time. This is the discipline that separates sites that grow their organic traffic from those that plateau.\n "])</script><script>self.__next_f.push([1,"17:[\"$\",\"$L1e\",null,{\"post\":{\"slug\":\"how-to-check-website-seo\",\"title\":\"How to Check Your Website's SEO: 10 Critical Factors in 2026\",\"subtitle\":\"A no-fluff guide to checking your website's SEO — what to look for, what each metric means, and how to fix problems fast.\",\"category\":\"Technical SEO\",\"readingMinutes\":8,\"publishedAt\":\"2026-03-08\",\"pullQuote\":\"The fastest way to improve your rankings is not to publish more content. 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