Conducting Technical SEO Audits for Café Websites

To conduct a technical SEO audit for a café website, follow a structured process focusing on key technical elements that affect search engine crawling, indexing, and user experience:

1. Pre-Audit Preparation

   • Define your audit objectives (e.g., sitemap, site speed, internal linking).
   • Ensure access to essential tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and a crawling tool such as Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Semrush.
   • Configure your crawling tool properly (e.g., set page title width, limit URL parameters, enable duplicate content checks, use Googlebot user-agent) to simulate search engine crawling accurately.

2. Crawl Your Website

   • Use your crawling tool to identify broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and other crawl errors.
   • Check that only one version of your site is accessible (e.g., with or without www, HTTPS vs HTTP) to avoid duplicate content issues.

3. Check Indexing and Sitemap

   • Verify that your sitemap is submitted and up to date in Google Search Console.
   • Ensure important pages are indexed and irrelevant or duplicate pages are excluded via robots.txt or noindex tags.

4. Internal Linking and Site Architecture

   • Review internal linking to ensure logical navigation and distribute link equity effectively.
   • Confirm that your site structure supports easy crawling and user navigation, which is especially important for café menus, location pages, and blog content.

5. Page Speed and Mobile Friendliness

   • Test your website’s loading speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
   • Optimize images, leverage browser caching, and minimize code to improve speed.
   • Ensure the site is mobile responsive, as many users search for cafés on mobile devices.

6. On-Page Technical SEO Checks

   • Check for proper use of canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues.
   • Validate schema markup (e.g., LocalBusiness schema for cafés) to enhance search result appearance.
   • Review meta titles and descriptions for length and relevance.

7. Security and User Experience

   • Confirm the site uses HTTPS to secure user data and improve rankings.
   • Check Google Search Console for any security issues or manual actions that could harm visibility.

8. Post-Audit Monitoring

   • After implementing fixes, monitor site performance and indexing status regularly using Google Search Console and Analytics.
   • Maintain the site by periodically repeating audits to catch new issues early.

This approach ensures your café website is technically optimized to rank well, provide a good user experience, and be easily understood by search engines and AI tools.