Technical SEO Checklist for a Small Business Site
The technical checks that matter on a small business site answer four questions: can Google reach your pages, can it read them, does each page say clearly what it offers, and does the site work on a phone. You can run the first pass yourself with free Google tools, and having the whole list set up and fixed properly is the SEO foundation, a one-off at EUR 450 to 750.
What sits behind EUR 450 to 750
The foundation is a fixed set of work: Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links, and a written plan for the following 3 to 6 months. The range exists because sites arrive in different states, and you can judge what moves it yourself.
- Page count. Every page needs its own title, description and place in the internal links, so a five-page site and a site with a blog archive behind it are different jobs.
- History. If the site replaced an older one or its page addresses changed, the old addresses need redirecting, because whatever standing they had in search is attached to them.
- Platform. Squarespace, Wix and Shopify generate sitemaps and secure connections for you and limit what you can change. WordPress with a stack of plugins, or a hand-built site, leaves more to check and more that can be fixed.
- Languages. A Dutch and an English version of the same page have to be linked and labelled for search engines, page by page.
- Access. If nobody knows who holds the domain, the DNS or the Google account the site was verified under, the work starts by finding out. That part waits on you.
The checklist
Work through it in this order. A better title does nothing for a page Google cannot index.
Can Google reach and index the site
| Check | What good looks like | How to see it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console | Verified as a domain property, on a Google account the business controls | The property picker shows your bare domain, without https:// in front |
| Analytics | Counting visits, with a cookie banner that does what it says | Accept cookies on your own site and look for your visit in the real-time report |
| One address | http, https, with www and without all end on the same version | Type each variant into the browser and see where you land |
| robots.txt | Blocks nothing you want found | Open yourdomain.nl/robots.txt. Disallow: / under User-agent: * blocks the whole site |
| No leftover noindex | The setting that hides a site during construction is switched off | URL Inspection in Search Console, on the home page and a service page |
| Sitemap | Lists live pages only, and is submitted | The Sitemaps report in Search Console |
| Indexed pages | Every page you care about is indexed, and each excluded page has a reason you agree with | The Pages report in Search Console |
| Broken links and redirects | Old addresses redirect to their replacements, and no link points at a missing page | Not found (404) in the Pages report |
Does each page say what it is, on any screen
| Check | What good looks like | How to see it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Unique, naming the service and, for a local business, the place | Search site:yourdomain.nl and read the headlines as a stranger would |
| Meta description | Unique, written for the person deciding whether to click | The same site: search. Google may rewrite it, but it starts from yours |
| Main heading | One per page, saying what the page offers | Read it out of context and see whether it still makes sense |
| Internal links | Each service page reachable from the menu or home page, and linked from related pages | Click from the home page to every service without using search |
| Business details | Name, address, phone and hours marked up as structured data that matches your Business Profile | The Schema Markup Validator |
| Mobile | Readable text, tappable buttons and phone number, no sideways scrolling | Your own phone, on mobile data rather than office wifi |
| Speed | Images sized for the screen and compressed, and the Core Web Vitals assessment passing where Google has data | PageSpeed Insights on the home page and your busiest service page |
Work down the right-hand column yourself first. If it turns up nothing you cannot fix in your site builder's settings, you may not need anyone. If it turns up things you do not understand, that list is what the foundation works through.
Foundation, growth and care are different things
| SEO foundation | SEO growth | Care | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | EUR 450 to 750, one-off | EUR 500 to 800 per month | EUR 100 to 300 per month |
| What it covers | Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links, a 3 to 6 month plan | Technical and on-page work, service and location pages, internal links, reporting | Updates, monitoring, backups, small fixes |
The foundation is done once. Growth and care are monthly, and care is neither a redesign nor new features.
Process and timeline
- Access. Domain, DNS, site admin and the Google account. Nothing starts until these are in hand.
- Audit. The checklist, run on every page and written up as what is wrong and what it affects.
- Fixes. Redirects, sitemap, indexing settings, titles, descriptions, headings and internal links.
- Submission. The sitemap submitted and key pages requested for indexing. Google then recrawls on its own schedule.
- Plan. A written plan for the next 3 to 6 months: pages to add, pages to improve, what to watch. Carry it out yourself, with anyone, or through SEO growth.
Sometimes the audit shows the site is the obstacle: one long page with no room for a page per service, or a builder that will not let you edit titles. Then the fix is a rebuild on the build's timeline. A step 02 mini-site at EUR 900 to 1.500 takes 2 to 3 weeks, and a step 03 business website at EUR 1.500 to 3.500 takes 3 to 6 weeks. A new build is the cheapest moment to get every row of the checklist right, so put it in the build scope. More on how we build is on the design and engineering page.
When to spend less
If customers find you through referrals, a sign on the door or a platform you already sell through, and nobody searches for what you do, technical SEO is not where your money should go. Verify Search Console so you would notice a problem, and stop there.
If your site runs on Squarespace, Wix or Shopify, has a handful of pages, and the right-hand column came back clean, the platform is already doing the technical part. Spend the money on better service pages instead.
If you are planning a new site anyway, do not buy the foundation for the old one. Put the checklist in the new build's scope and pay for it once. Every price is on the packages page.
Questions buyers ask
Is technical SEO enough to rank?
No. It removes the reasons Google cannot show your pages, and it gives Google no reason to prefer them. That comes from pages that answer what people search for and from other sites linking to yours. A technically clean site with thin service pages is a clean site that nobody finds.
When will I see a difference?
Nobody can honestly give you a date. A fix like removing a leftover noindex shows once Google recrawls the page, on Google's schedule. Better titles only pay off once your pages already appear for searches. Search Console shows either change as it happens, which is why it is set up first.
Do I need SEO growth after the foundation?
Only if the plan calls for work you will not do yourself. The foundation is one-off and complete on its own. If the plan says you need a page per service and you are happy to write them, write them and skip the monthly cost.
Who should own Search Console and analytics?
You. Set both up on a Google account that belongs to the business and add anyone helping you as a user, so access survives a change of supplier. The same applies to the site itself: for anything we build, you own the code, the repository and the database.
Send us your site address and what you want it found for. Get in touch.
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