For a SaaS founder or CMO, technical SEO is often viewed through the lens of maintenance, a set of backend fixes needed to keep a website running. In practice, that mindset creates a strategic blind spot.
When a SaaS platform carries technical debt, revenue gets diluted. High-intent search queries don’t reach your product pages because search engines can’t properly access, render, or prioritise those pages.
This guide provides a framework for prioritising technical SEO audits based on business impact, conversion potential, and developer resource allocation.
How to Prioritise Technical SEO Issues in B2B SaaS
Running technical SEO audits for SaaS comes down to one core principle: if Google can’t crawl or index a page, that page has zero commercial value.
The prioritisation model below reflects that reality: we fix visibility risk first, then conversion efficiency, then authority and optimisation layers.
| Tier | Key Issues | Business Impact |
|---|---|---|
| P0: Access and Visibility (Critical) | JavaScript rendering failures, robots.txt blocks, “noindex” tags on revenue pages, and server errors (5xx) | Immediate loss of organic visibility and zero return on content investment. If a page cannot be crawled or indexed, its commercial value is zero. |
| P1: Conversion and Performance (High) | Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS), mobile-first indexing discrepancies, and slow server response times (TTFB) | Traffic arrives but bounces. Users see your page but don't convert to trials or demos. |
| P2: Authority and Structure (Medium) | Site architecture, internal linking, and XML sitemap errors | Diluted rankings for high-intent keywords and slower discovery of new product features. These issues affect how search engines understand the relationship between your pages. |
| P3: Optimisation and CTR (Low) | Schema markup, metadata optimisation | Lower click-through rates (CTR) and minor ranking fluctuations. These are incremental improvements that enhance the user’s experience in search results. |
Use this framework to run your audit. The checklist below breaks down every check by tier, start at P0 and work down.
Running a Technical SEO Audit Across Your SaaS Website (Step-by-Step)
Here’s how to execute each tier. We’ve broken the audit into five phases, prioritised by business impact.
Phase 1: Crawlability and Indexation
The first priority in SaaS SEO is ensuring search engines can reliably access, interpret, and index your content.
A. JavaScript Rendering Strategy
Standard search engine bots follow a two-stage process: an initial crawl of the HTML and a subsequent rendering of the JavaScript.
For many SaaS sites, most of the page content is generated dynamically by JavaScript after load, so it’s only visible at that second stage. If your rendering takes too long or hits a script error, Google indexes an empty page.
Audit Process:
- Open Google Search Console’s (GSC) “URL Inspection” tool
- Enter your homepage or a key product page
- Click “View Crawled Page” → “HTML”
- Check if your headlines, product copy, and CTAs appear in the raw HTML
If you see mostly empty divs, loading scripts, or skeleton screens, Google can’t index your content.
The Fix:
Either switch to Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or Static Site Generation (SSG):
- SSR: Server sends fully-rendered HTML to both browsers and bots (Next.js, Nuxt.js, Angular Universal)
- SSG: Pages are pre-built as static HTML, so they load instantly and are easy for search engines to crawl (ideal for marketing pages, blogs, docs)
B. Indexation Health
It’s not enough to just publish content; you need to ensure Google is actually adding it to their index.
Here’s how to check:
- Open Google Search Console → Pages
- Review the “Why pages aren’t indexed” section
- Look for patterns in the excluded pages
Common issues you’ll find:
| Issue | What It Means | How to Fix |
|---|---|---|
| 404 Errors | Broken links to pages that no longer exist | Restore the content, implement proper 301 redirects to relevant pages, or remove internal links pointing to these URLs |
| Crawled - Currently Not Indexed | Google found these pages but decided not to index them (usually due to thin content or low quality) | Improve content quality, add clearer value propositions, or strengthen internal linking from high-authority pages |
| Pages with Redirects | These redirect to other URLs, so Google indexes the destination instead | Audit redirect chains and update internal links to point directly to final destinations |
| Duplicate Content | Multiple URLs with similar content competing against each other | Use canonical tags to tell Google which version to index, or consolidate content into single authoritative pages |
| Noindex Tags | Pages explicitly blocked from indexing | Remove noindex tags from pages that should be indexed, or verify intentional exclusions (e.g., admin pages, thank you pages) |
C. Crawl Budget Management
For most smaller SaaS sites, crawl budget isn’t a major issue, Google is usually quick to find and index everything that matters.
But at enterprise scale, when your site includes thousands of marketing, documentation, and support pages, it’s worth keeping an eye on how efficiently search engines are spending their crawl time.
Audit Process:
- Open Google Search Console → Settings → Crawl Stats
- Look at “Crawl requests per day” and which URLs are being crawled most
- Check if Google is spending significant time on pages that shouldn’t be indexed
Red flags:
- High crawl activity on /search?q= or filter URLs
- Session IDs or tracking parameters getting crawled repeatedly
- Admin or staging environments appearing in crawl logs
The Fix: Refine your robots.txt to prioritise key commercial pages and block low-value paths like admin sections, internal searches, and session parameters.
Phase 2: Page Speed and Core Web Vitals
Performance is part of your go-to-market infrastructure.
If core pages load slowly, acquisition efficiency drops before your product or positioning ever gets evaluated.
Understanding Core Web Vitals
Google measures user experience through three metrics that correlate strongly with bounce rates and conversions.
How to check your scores: Open Google PageSpeed Insights, enter your homepage URL, and look at the Core Web Vitals section in the results.
| Metric | What It Measures | Target | How to Optimise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | How long until the main content loads | Under 2.5 seconds |
|
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | How much the page jumps around while loading | Under 0.1 |
|
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | How quickly the page responds to clicks and taps | Under 200ms |
|
Phase 3: Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Your site’s architecture determines how search engines and users navigate your product. For SaaS sites, a clean structure ensures authority flows from your homepage to individual feature pages.
A. Navigation and Menu Structure
Your main navigation is the most powerful internal linking tool you have. Every page linked from your header menu gets crawled frequently and receives a strong authority signal.
Audit Process:
Look at your main nav. Are your most commercially important pages included?
- Pricing
- Key product features or use cases
- Customer stories/case studies
- Free trial or demo signup
Compare this to what’s actually there. Many SaaS sites bury their pricing under dropdown menus or leave case studies completely out of the main nav.
Fix:
Restructure your menu to prioritise conversion-focused pages. Think commercially: which pages directly lead to signups or demos? Those should be front and center in your navigation.
Example structure:
What this structure does:
- Pricing and Customers are top-level items (not buried in dropdowns)
- Product dropdown exposes your most valuable feature pages to search engines
- Resources are grouped to avoid cluttering the main nav
- Book Demo gets prime real estate as a standalone CTA
The key: every top-level menu item should either drive conversions or distribute authority to pages that do.
B. Subfolders vs. Subdomains
A recurring debate in SaaS is whether to host a blog or documentation on a subdomain (blog.product.com) or a subfolder (product.com/blog).
- In almost every instance, subfolders perform better. Search engines treat subdomains as distinct entities. By using a subfolder, every backlink earned by your content directly increases the authority of your core product pages.
- The Fix: If you’re on subdomains, plan a migration to subfolders with 301 redirects. This consolidates all your link authority under one domain.
Important: this is a technical migration that requires careful planning to avoid losing rankings temporarily.
C. Internal Link Distribution
Internal links are one of the clearest ways to show Google what matters on your site. If your pricing page has 5 internal links while a legacy blog post from 2019 has 50, you’re sending a very different priority signal than you intend.
Audit Process:
Use a crawling tool (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit) to identify:
- Pages with zero internal links pointing to them (orphan pages)
- How many internal links your key commercial pages receive
- Which pages receive the most internal links
Look for mismatches: do your conversion pages have fewer internal links than old blog posts?.
How to Rebalance:
- Link to pricing, features, and case studies from your most-trafficked posts
- Add contextual links within blog content (e.g., “learn how [Feature] works” linking to product pages)
- Include relevant product pages in your blog sidebar or footer
- Make sure every new piece of content links to at least one commercial page
Target: Your highest-converting pages should have the most internal links and be no more than 2-3 clicks from your homepage.
Phase 4: Mobile-First Indexing & Responsive Design
Google prioritises the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. If your mobile experience has critical issues, your rankings will suffer even if your desktop site is flawless.
Check your mobile experience:
Open Google Search Console → Core Web Vitals → Mobile Tab to see reported issues. Then test key pages on your actual phone.
| Issue | Why It Matters | How to Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Text Too Small to Read | Users have to pinch and zoom to read content, creating friction |
|
| Hard-to-Tap Interactive Elements | Buttons and links are difficult to tap accurately, causing user frustration |
|
| Content Wider Than Screen | Users have to scroll horizontally to see content, breaking the reading flow |
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| Intrusive Popups | Modals that cover content and can’t be easily dismissed hurt user experience |
|
Phase 5: Structured Data & Schema Markup
Structured data helps search engines understand your product: what it does, how much it costs, who it’s for. Done right, this gets you richer search results with ratings, pricing, and key features showing up before users even click.
How to check your current schema: Use Google’s Rich Results Test to see what structured data is already on your pages.
| Schema Type | Where to Use It | What to Include |
|---|---|---|
| Software Application |
Product pages, homepage |
|
| Offer (Pricing) | Pricing page |
|
| FAQPage | FAQ sections, support articles |
|
| HowTo | Tutorials, onboarding guides |
|
| Article | Blog posts, case studies |
|
Implementation Approach
- Start with high-impact pages: Add SoftwareApplication schema to your homepage and main product pages first. Then add Offer schema to your pricing page. These two will have the biggest impact on how your product appears in search.
- Automate through templates: Build schema into your CMS templates so it automatically applies to new content.
- Validate your markup: Use Google’s Rich Results Test after implementation to check for errors. Fix any missing required fields or formatting issues.
Building the Business Case: How to Secure Buy-In for Technical SEO
Once the audit is complete and the fixes are clear, here’s how to get dev resources allocated without being deprioritised against product features.
Week 1: Build the Business Case
Document the revenue impact (2 hours):
Use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to pull:
- Total product pages vs. indexed product pages (Index Coverage report)
- Queries your pages SHOULD rank for but don’t (Search Performance report)
- Current conversion rate on indexed pages (GA goals)
- Page load times on key conversion pages (GSC Core Web Vitals)
Calculate lost revenue:
Unindexed pages × Average search volume × Industry conversion rate × Your trial value = Monthly opportunity cost
Example: 185 unindexed product pages × 50 avg monthly searches × 3.8% conversion × $1,800 trial value = $63,270 monthly opportunity.
Create one-pager for executive team (1 hour):
- Current state: “X% of our product pages aren’t indexed, costing approximately $Y monthly in lost trials”
- Specific fixes needed: “Server-side rendering for product templates, Core Web Vitals optimisation, canonical implementation”
- Resource request: “Z weeks of dev time over next quarter”
- Expected outcome: “Projected increase of W trials monthly based on indexation improvement”
Week 2: Developer Briefing
Create specific, measurable tickets (2 hours):
❌ Don’t say: “Our site is slow and it’s hurting conversions”
✅ Say: “LCP is 4.2s on pricing and homepage (target: < 2.5s). Main bottlenecks: unoptimised hero images (800KB+), render-blocking third-party scripts, and large JS bundles.
Recommended fixes: implement code-splitting on main bundle, lazy-load below-fold images, defer non-critical scripts (Intercom, analytics).
Success criteria: LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms on /pricing, /features, and homepage.”
Template for each critical issue:
ISSUE: [Specific technical problem]
EVIDENCE: [GSC screenshot + data]
BUSINESS IMPACT: [Lost trials/revenue]
REQUESTED FIX: [Specific solution]
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA: [Measurable outcome]
TIMELINE: [Realistic dev estimate]
Allocate dedicated sprint capacity (1 hour):
Request 15-20% of next sprint for technical SEO. Frame it as revenue generation, not marketing optimisation.
Some teams dedicate one developer 2 days per sprint. Others run quarterly “technical excellence” sprints focused entirely on performance and SEO.
Week 3: Set Up Monitoring
Configure tracking dashboards (2 hours):
Create Looker Studio dashboard showing:
- Indexed pages by section (from GSC)
- Core Web Vitals trends (from GSC)
- Organic trials by page type (from GA)
- Crawl budget efficiency: pages crawled / pages in sitemap (from GSC)
Share weekly in product review meetings. When developers see JavaScript optimisations move metrics, they engage.
Establish baseline metrics (1 hour):
Before any fixes:
- Index coverage %
- Avg LCP/INP on conversion pages
- Organic conversion rate
- Trials from organic by page category
After fixes (6-8 weeks later): Track the same metrics. Calculate ROI of dev time/resources invested.
Recommended Reading: How to Calculate ROI for SaaS SEO
Technical SEO is Revenue Strategy
For most SaaS teams, technical SEO starts as a checklist and ends as firefighting.
But when you zoom out, it’s really part of a larger growth system. If you want the broader strategic context, this complete SaaS SEO audit guide breaks down how tech, content, and commercial SEO audits fit together across the SaaS funnel.
And if you ever want a second set of eyes on your technical SEO or help prioritising what to fix first, you can always reach out to us. We’ll help you identify the biggest revenue risks and map out a workable action plan.
