#Juxt Learn Tip of the Week: Technical SEO Checklist for 2025 (What Actually Matters)

1. Speed Matters–A Lot

If your site’s slow, you’re losing visitors. Almost half of users will bounce if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Google knows this too, and that’s why page speed is a key ranking factor. Their Core Web Vitals test shows how well your site performs in the real world—and only a third of sites pass.

What to do:

• Use tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to audit your load times.
• Optimize your images (lazy load, compress, and use modern formats like WebP).
• Minimize JavaScript and CSS bloat.
• Switch to a faster hosting provider or use a CDN (Content Delivery Network).

2. Mobile Optimization is a Must

Mobile drives 63% of all search traffic. If your site doesn’t work great on phones, you’re losing the majority of your audience—and hurting your rankings since Google now uses mobile-first indexing.

What to do:

• Use responsive design, not separate mobile URLs.
• Make sure buttons, fonts, and images scale well across devices.
• Test regularly on different screen sizes.

3. Pass Core Web Vitals or Fall Behind

Google cares about three things:

• LCP (Load Speed)
• INP (Interactivity)
• CLS (Visual Stability)

If your site flunks these, expect lower rankings and frustrated users.

What to do:

• LCP (Load Speed)
  • Speed up your server. A slow host kills performance.
  • Defer non-essential JavaScript so your main content loads faster.
  • Compress large images and videos using tools like TinyPNG or Handbrake.
• INP (Interactivity)
  • Shorten long JavaScript tasks—break them into smaller chunks.
  • Use web workers to offload heavy scripts.
  • Cut down third-party scripts (ads, widgets, etc.) that bog things down.
• CLS (Visual Stability)
  • Set image and video dimensions to prevent content from jumping around.
  • Use font-display: swap to avoid invisible text.
  • Don’t load pop-ups or ads above existing content without planning for space.

4. Clean-Up Duplicate Content

Too much duplicate content confuses search engines and splits your ranking power.

What to do:

• Use canonical tags to tell Google which version is the “main” one.
• Scan your site for duplicates with tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb.
• Write unique content—especially on product pages.
• Merge or clean-up similar pages when possible.

5. Make Sure Your Site is Secure (HTTPS Only)

HTTPS isn’t optional anymore—it’s a trust signal and a ranking factor. If your site is still using HTTP, it’s time to fix that.

What to do:

• Install an SSL certificate and force HTTPS sitewide.
• Update internal links and canonical tags.
• Clean up any “mixed content” warnings (HTTP content on HTTPS pages).

6. Help Search Bots Crawl Your Site

If bots can’t crawl it, they can’t index it. And if it’s not indexed, it won’t show up in search—period.

What to do:

• Submit an updated sitemap in Google Search Console.
• Use a clean, well-structured robots.txt file.
• Avoid burying important pages too deep—keep them within 3 clicks from the homepage.
• Regularly check Search Console for crawl issues.

7. Keep Your URLs Clean

Clean URLs help both users and search engines understand what a page is about.

What to do:

• Use short, keyword-relevant URLs (e.g., /running-shoes instead of ?id=123).
• Use hyphens, not underscores.
• Be consistent in your URL structure across your site.

8. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Schema helps Google “read” your content better—and can win you rich results like star ratings, FAQs, and more. It’s especially important with AI-powered search.

What to do:

• Add schema markup to products, articles, reviews, events, and FAQs.
• Use Google’s Rich Results Test to check your markup.
• Start with key pages: homepage, product pages, blog posts, and contact info.

9. Set Up Proper Redirects

Broken links and redirect chains hurt SEO and frustrate users.

What to do:

• Use 301 redirects for removed or moved pages.
• Avoid redirect chains (A > B > C) and loops.
• Update internal links so they point straight to the final destination.

10. Keep Your Sitemap Tidy

Your sitemap should help Google navigate your site—not confuse it.

What to do:

• Only include quality, indexable pages.
• Automate sitemap updates as you add/remove pages.
• Resubmit in Search Console after big changes.

11. Don’t Overload with JavaScript

Too much JavaScript can stop search engines from fully rendering your pages.

What to do:

• Consider server-side rendering (SSR) or static site generation (SSG).
• Defer non-critical scripts so they don’t block page load.
• Audit and remove unnecessary JavaScript regularly.

12. Audit Your Site Regularly

Technical SEO is not a one-and-done job. It needs ongoing attention.

What to do:

• Do a full technical SEO audit every 3 months.
• Use tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit.
• Monitor indexation and crawl stats in Search Console.
• Fix issues before they become traffic problems.