Technical SEO & LLMO Audit: 100+ Point Review for Search and AI Visibility
Technical issues are invisible revenue blockers. Resolving them drove a +46% organic visibility uplift for levi’s EMEA.
Why Technical SEO Still Matters; More Than Ever
There is a persistent myth in digital marketing that technical SEO is a solved problem, that modern CMS platforms handle the fundamentals automatically, and that content and links are all that really move the needle in 2025. This myth is expensive. The brands that believe it consistently underperform against those that treat technical excellence as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time setup task.
The reality is that every site accumulates technical debt. Redirects that should be permanent remain temporary. Canonical tags point to the wrong URLs. Pages that should be indexed are inadvertently blocked. Internal linking structures drift as new content is added without a coherent architecture. Page speed degrades as third-party scripts are added without governance. None of these issues announce themselves. They accumulate silently, compounding over months and years, until the gap between the site’s potential performance and its actual performance becomes significant, and very difficult to explain without a thorough audit.
Our Technical SEO + LLMO Audit addresses this systematically. It covers more than 100 signals across every layer of technical and on-page performance, and it adds a dimension that most agencies are still not auditing: LLMO, or Large Language Model Optimisation — the signals that determine whether your content is cited and surfaced by AI-powered search tools.
What LLMO Actually Means
optimising content to be discovered, understood and cited by AI-powered search interfaces
LLMO, Large Language Model Optimisation, is the practice of optimising content to be discovered, understood and cited by AI-powered search interfaces. These include Google’s AI Overviews, which now appear at the top of a significant and growing proportion of search results pages; Perplexity AI, which is increasingly used as a primary research tool; ChatGPT’s Browse capability; and other AI-native search tools that are reshaping how users find and consume information.
The signals that determine AI citation eligibility overlap significantly with traditional SEO signals, but they are not identical. AI systems prefer content that is structured, direct and authoritative. They preferentially cite pages that clearly define their subject matter, answer specific questions in the opening sentences of each section, demonstrate expertise through evidence and attribution, and are marked up with structured data that helps machines parse the content accurately.
The LLMO layer of our audit assesses five core dimensions. E-E-A-T depth and evidence, whether the page demonstrates real experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, not just claims them. Entity definition and coverage, whether the key concepts on the page are clearly defined and correctly labelled, giving language models the context they need to understand and accurately represent the content. Answer-format alignment, whether the content is structured to deliver direct, concise answers to specific questions, rather than burying the key point in the middle of a long paragraph. Citation readiness, whether the page is quotable in isolation, with clearly attributed statistics, definitions and claims that an AI system can extract and reference without misrepresenting the source. And structured data quality, whether the JSON-LD / schema markup on the page accurately describes its content in a format that machines can parse without ambiguity.
The Full Audit Scope
A page that cannot be crawled cannot be indexed.
Crawlability and Indexation
The foundation of any technical audit is understanding how search engine crawlers experience your site. We analyse your robots.txt configuration, XML sitemap structure and submission status, crawl depth and internal link architecture, noindex and nofollow tag usage, and Google Search Console crawl and indexation data where access is provided. A page that cannot be crawled cannot be indexed. A page that is indexed incorrectly cannot rank for the right queries. Both problems are common, both are invisible to users, and both are entirely fixable once identified.
Redirect and Link Architecture
Redirect chains, where URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C, waste crawl budget and dilute link equity at every hop. Broken internal links create dead ends for both crawlers and users. Temporary 302 redirects where permanent 301s are required prevent link equity from passing correctly. Our audit maps your full redirect landscape and internal link structure, identifying every instance of each of these issues and prioritising them by the volume of link equity affected. For Post Office, this analysis alone identified over 500 broken pages with strong backlink profiles — pages that were haemorrhaging link value every day they remained broken.
Core Web Vitals and Page Speed
Google’s Core Web Vitals, Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), are confirmed ranking signals, and failing them has a measurable impact on both search visibility and conversion rates. We audit Core Web Vitals across desktop and mobile for your key page templates, homepage, service pages, product pages, article pages, using PageSpeed Insights data and, where available, Chrome User Experience Report field data. We identify the specific assets, scripts and rendering patterns causing failures, and provide development-ready recommendations for each.
Duplicate Content and Canonicalisation
Duplicate content is one of the most consistently underestimated technical SEO problems. It manifests in multiple ways: URL parameter variations creating thousands of near-identical pages, www vs non-www inconsistencies, HTTP vs HTTPS conflicts, pagination handling creating duplicate or near-duplicate content, and session IDs or tracking parameters in crawlable URLs. Each creates a situation where Google must choose between multiple versions of the same content, and frequently makes the wrong choice. We identify every source of duplication on your site and provide specific canonicalisation recommendations for each.
Structured Data Implementation
Structured data, JSON-LD markup using schema.org vocabulary, helps both search engines and AI systems understand the content and context of your pages. It is also the primary mechanism for eligibility for rich results: the enhanced SERP features including FAQ accordions, review stars, how-to steps, breadcrumb trails and more that significantly improve click-through rates. We audit every page type for structured data coverage, implementation quality and validation errors, and provide recommendations for expanding schema coverage across your site.
On-Page Optimisation
Beyond the technical infrastructure, we review on-page optimisation quality across your key page templates: title tag length, uniqueness and keyword targeting; meta description quality and call-to-action strength; heading hierarchy and keyword usage; image alt text coverage and quality; and internal link anchor text distribution. We also review URL structure for clarity, keyword inclusion and consistency with your site architecture.
How Issues Are Prioritised
Every issue is categorised on two dimensions: effort required to fix and impact on organic performance
A flat list of 100+ issues is not useful. It creates paralysis rather than action, because there is no way to know which problems to address first. Our audit does not deliver a flat list. Every issue is categorised on two dimensions: effort required to fix (low, medium or high, based on development complexity and time) and impact on organic performance (low, medium or high, based on the volume of traffic and authority affected).
The result is a priority matrix that makes the action plan self-evident. High-impact, low-effort fixes, the canonical quick wins, go first. High-impact, high-effort issues, typically architecture and platform changes are phased into a longer-term roadmap. Low-impact issues, regardless of effort, are noted for completeness but never drive the agenda.
This prioritisation approach is the difference between an audit that sits in a folder and an audit that drives a measurable improvement in performance within 90 days.
The Levi’s EMEA Case
organic visibility increased by 46% across the affected markets
The most instructive example of what technical SEO resolution can achieve at scale is the work conducted for Levi’s across the UK, France and Germany. The 90-point audit, the predecessor to our current 100+ point framework, identified a set of interconnected technical issues that were compressing organic visibility across all three markets: canonical tag errors creating duplicate content across localised URLs, a third-party mobile site generating mobile-desktop mismatch signals that suppressed mobile rankings, XML sitemap issues preventing efficient crawling of category and product pages, and internal linking structures that left high-value category pages poorly served by the site’s link equity distribution.
When the highest-priority technical fixes were implemented, led by the removal of the third-party mobile site and the resolution of the canonical and sitemap issues, organic visibility increased by 46% across the affected markets. This was not a content or link-building gain. It was a technical fix, implemented correctly, delivering a direct and measurable performance improvement.
What You Receive
The audit is delivered as three interconnected documents.
The executive summary translates technical findings into business risk and opportunity language, designed to be understood and acted on by leadership, product managers and developers who do not have SEO expertise.
The prioritised action plan presents every issue with its effort and impact scores, a clear description of the problem, its business impact, and specific implementation guidance.
The tracked issue log is a structured spreadsheet in your preferred format. Google Sheet, Notion or CSV with owner fields and status tracking built in, so fixes can be managed as a proper development project.
Frequently Asked Questions
What tools do you use for the technical audit?
Our primary crawl tool is Screaming Frog, supplemented by Google Search Console data where access is provided, PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals, Ahrefs or SEMrush for backlink and keyword data, and schema.org validator for structured data QA. We also review server response headers and analyse log files where available, as log file data provides the most accurate picture of how Googlebot is actually crawling your site.
Do you need access to our CMS or server?
Not necessarily. We can complete the majority of the audit from a crawl and public data sources. Read-only access to Google Search Console significantly improves the quality of the indexation and crawl budget analysis, and we will request this as standard. CMS or server access is only required where we need to review specific configuration files or server-side redirect rules that are not visible from a standard crawl.
How long does the audit take?
For most sites up to 50,000 URLs, we deliver within 5–10 working days. Larger or more technically complex sites multiple subdomains, international hreflang implementations, large e-commerce catalogues may require additional time. We agree the scope and timeline before starting.
Can you audit a site ahead of a migration or replatform?
Yes; and this is one of the highest-value applications of a technical audit. A pre-migration audit identifies every technical issue that should be resolved before the migration, every redirect requirement that must be implemented on day one, and every structured data or on-page element that must be carried across. Post-migration, a follow-up crawl confirms that the implementation has been executed correctly and that no new issues have been introduced. This approach saves significant clean-up time and prevents the organic traffic drops that frequently follow poorly managed migrations.
How is this audit different from what our current agency provides?
The most significant difference is the LLMO layer, the assessment of AI-readiness signals that most agencies are not yet including in their technical audits. Beyond that, the differentiation is in prioritisation and commercial framing. Most technical audit reports deliver a list. Ours delivers a prioritised action plan with business impact scoring, an executive summary designed for leadership consumption, and a tracked issue log designed for development team handoff. The goal is not to produce a document. It is to drive implementation.
The Bottom Line
A technical audit is not a one-time event. It is a diagnostic that should be run whenever there is a significant change to your site — a migration, a new CMS, a major content expansion, a new market entry — and annually as routine maintenance. The sites that perform consistently well in organic search are almost invariably the ones where technical quality is treated as an ongoing discipline rather than a project that was completed once several years ago.
The addition of the LLMO layer makes this audit more relevant now than it has ever been. As AI-generated answers become the primary interface for a growing proportion of search queries, the brands that have structured, authoritative, machine-readable content will capture the visibility that others are losing. The audit tells you exactly where you stand, and exactly what needs to change.
We use Screaming Frog for site crawl data, SEMrush or Ahrefs for keyword and competitor visibility data, DataForSEO for search volume and CPC intelligence, and Google Search Console where access is available. The RAG methodology cross-references ranking position, search volume and content quality to produce the final status for each keyword.
How many competitors do you benchmark against?
We typically benchmark against 3–5 named competitors per analysis, chosen in collaboration with you. We also include any aggregators or comparison sites that dominate your category SERPs, as these are often the real share-of-voice threat rather than direct brand competitors.
How long does the analysis take to deliver?
Typically 10–15 working days from briefing and data access to final delivery, depending on the size of your keyword universe and the number of competitors included. We agree the scope and timeline before starting.
Do I need an existing SEO programme in place?
No. The Opportunity Analysis works for brands at any stage, whether you have never invested in SEO, are reviewing an existing agency’s work, or are planning a new market entry. It gives you a clear picture of where you are before deciding where to go.
Is the analysis a one-off or part of an ongoing service?
It is a standalone deliverable, but we recommend refreshing it annually or whenever there is a significant change in your competitive landscape. Many clients use it as a quarterly share-of-voice check to track progress against the opportunity map over time.
What happens after the analysis?
The analysis is designed to feed directly into the next stage of work — typically a Technical SEO + LLMO Audit, an SEO + LLMO Strategy, or both. The opportunity map becomes the commercial brief that every subsequent engagement is built around. Many clients find that the analysis alone gives their internal team or existing agency a clearer brief than they have ever had before.
The Bottom Line
The Opportunity Analysis is not a nice-to-have. It is the starting point for every serious digital growth programme. Without it, strategy is built on assumptions. With it, every decision — what to audit, what to build, where to invest, what to stop — is grounded in data and oriented toward a quantified commercial outcome.
If you are spending money on SEO, PPC or content without knowing your current share of available demand, you are investing blind. The Opportunity Analysis changes that. It tells you exactly where you are, exactly where the growth is, and exactly what it would take to claim it.
