What Does a Technical SEO Audit Actually Look Like?

Most small business owners know they need Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but the industry is full of empty promises. There’s a reason that we refer to ourselves as “marketers” rather than SEOs; people hate SEOs, and they’ve often got good reasons for that.

At Relay, we build practical, human-reviewed technical audits that are readable and actionable. Our goal is to teach you how to make the changes yourself — not to lock you into a permanent contract (though we can certainly help larger businesses build content plans, set up regular audits, and do everything necessary for long-term placement).

And while we don’t believe in using AI to replace human communication, we think it has an excellent use case within technical SEO: Mapping complex audit data to real-world SEO improvements. We believe this has the potential to level the playing field dramatically; small businesses can achieve better results and compete more effectively in search, without paying thousands of dollars for an SEO “expert.”

Below is an actual technical SEO and local search audit we prepared for a Midwest recording studio and music producer running a Squarespace website. We have replaced the client’s name, domain, and project credits with obvious placeholders (example-studio.com, Example Sound Studio, Example Producer) so you can see how we diagnose and report on issues like hidden indexing bugs, broken links, and local keyword gaps.

Want a custom audit like this for your website? We will run a complete technical crawl and manual review of your small business site — including a custom action plan, ready-to-paste titles and meta descriptions, and a 1-on-1 phone call or Zoom discussion to walk through the results together. Contact us today to get started.

Example Technical SEO Audit

Executive Summary & Baseline Performance

Relay conducted a full technical crawl and search visibility evaluation of example-studio.com (Example Sound Studio). Because you manage your own Squarespace website, this audit is written as a practical, step-by-step DIY guide. Every recommendation below can be completed directly inside your Squarespace dashboard without hiring a developer.

Note on Google Search Console & Google Analytics: We do not currently have access to Google Search Console or Google Analytics for example-studio.com, so this report focuses on the technical structure of your site. Setting up Google Search Console is free, takes about five minutes inside Squarespace (Analytics > Search Keywords), and would allow us to see the exact local search phrases musicians use to find you and identify which pages bring in the most traffic. I don’t know if you’ve already done this, but there are instructions at the end of the report in case you need to.

How to Use This Report: The biggest finding in our audit is a single hidden toggle switch inside Squarespace that is currently blocking Google from indexing your main /production service page and your /production-lead-form consultation page. Flipping that one switch will immediately put your studio services back into Google Search.

If you want to jump straight to the step-by-step instructions, scroll to the DIY Squarespace Checklist in Part 3.

Glossary of SEO Terms Used in This Report

• Indexable vs. noindex: When a page is Indexable, Google is allowed to store it and show it in search results. A noindex tag is a hidden instruction in the page code that tells Google: Do not show this page in search results. You generally don’t want to noindex a page unless you have a very good reason to do so.
• 404 Error (Broken Page): What visitors and Google see when they click a link to a page that was deleted or had its web address (URL) changed.
• 301 Redirect: An automatic forwarding rule inside Squarespace (or any other CMS) that sends visitors and Google from a no-longer-current URL to a current, working page.
• Title Tag (SEO Title): The clickable blue headline that appears in Google search results (and in the top tab of your web browser). It is the single strongest signal for telling Google what a page is about.
• Meta Description (SEO Description): The short 1-to-2-sentence summary shown directly underneath your Title Tag in Google search results. Google cuts this off after roughly 145 characters, usually — Google makes up its own rules, so this isn’t always true, but we try to keep meta descriptions to 145 when possible.
• Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3): The structural outline of a page. Every page should have only one H1 (Heading 1) acting as the main page title, followed by H2 (Heading 2) and H3 (Heading 3) tags for section subheadings. This is important for SEO and accessibility.
• Canonical Tag: A behind-the-scenes label that tells Google which version of a page is the master copy, so that duplicate calendar or tag links do not compete against each other.
• JSON-LD Schema (Structured Data): A small snippet of behind-the-scenes code pasted into Squarespace that acts like a digital business card for Google Maps and AI search tools (like ChatGPT and Google Gemini), explicitly identifying your studio name, city location, services, and credentials.

Visual Summary: Key Metrics

Audit Methodology & Crawl Process

• We scanned example-studio.com using our crawling agent (simulating how Googlebot crawls your site) across all 581 internal URLs and 1,094 external resource and outbound links (1,675 total URLs).
• Because Squarespace automatically creates separate URLs for every calendar event, blog tag, blog category, and ical calendar download link, we filtered out the automated Squarespace system noise to focus on the exact changes that will help you rank for local music production, recording, and mixing searches.
• We fed all of that into an AI to map it to our reporting template. We then reviewed the output and rewrote the report for accuracy.

Part 1: Site-Wide Technical Health & Local SEO Assessment

Your website has great raw material for local SEO and AI search visibility: you have a 991-word /production page detailing your work, plus 12 blog posts and dozens of regional venue credits.

However, Google is currently prevented from showing (arguably) your most important page to people searching for a local music producer or recording studio. Fixing the five items below will help your site perform in local search.

Deduplicated Technical Audit Scope Overview

1. The #1 Issue: Unhiding Your /production Page from Google

Right now, out of the 6 core pages on your website, only 3 are allowed in Google Search (/ Homepage, /events-calendar, and /news). The other 3 have a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag:

1. [https://www.example-studio.com/cart](https://www.example-studio.com/cart) (Shopping cart — should stay hidden).
2. [https://www.example-studio.com/production](https://www.example-studio.com/production) (991 words, 794 internal links — currently hidden from Google! That’s bad news.).
3. [https://www.example-studio.com/production-lead-form](https://www.example-studio.com/production-lead-form) (Consultation form — currently hidden from Google).

Why This Happened: In Squarespace, if you create a draft page and toggle on “Hide Page from Search Results” while building it, that setting stays on even after you add the page to your main navigation menu. Because /production is the page that explains your recording, mixing, and production work (and mentions your city, partner studios, and client discography), hiding it means Google only sees your 220-word homepage and your gig calendar. Unless Google ignores the noindex tag, but you don’t want to count on that.

How to Fix It (Takes 30 Seconds):

1. Log into Squarespace and click Website (or Pages) in the left menu.
2. Hover over the Production page and click the Gear icon (Settings).
3. Click the SEO tab on the left side of the pop-up window.
4. Scroll to the bottom and toggle OFF “Hide Page from Search Results” (and make sure “Hide all pages in this collection” is not checked).
5. Click Save, then repeat for Production Lead Form if you want people to be able to find your free consultation form directly via search.

2. Fixing Broken Internal Links (404s) & Old Event Links

A. Four Broken Internal Links (404 Errors)

Our crawl found 4 links on your website that point to internal pages that no longer exist:

• [https://www.example-studio.com/lessons](https://www.example-studio.com/lessons) (1 link — linked from your blog post /news/new-website)
• [https://www.example-studio.com/lesson-lead-form](https://www.example-studio.com/lesson-lead-form) (3 links — linked from /news/music-teacher-how-to-use-a-tuner and /news/new-student)
• [https://www.example-studio.com/audio-visual](https://www.example-studio.com/audio-visual) (1 link — linked from /news/new-website)
• [https://www.example-studio.com/news/artist-album-release-show](https://www.example-studio.com/news/artist-album-release-show) (1 link — linked from /events-calendar/artist-album-release-show, whereas the actual blog post URL is /news/producing-artist-debut-album)

How to Fix Them: You can either edit those three old blog posts and the event entry to remove/update the links, OR you can automatically forward those old URLs in Squarespace by going to Settings > Developer Tools > URL Mappings and pasting these four lines:

Plaintext

/lessons -> /production 301
/lesson-lead-form -> /production-lead-form 301
/audio-visual -> /production 301
/news/artist-album-release-show -> /news/producing-artist-debut-album 301

(Note: If you still offer bass/music lessons and plan to bring back a dedicated /lessons page during your redesign, keep that in mind — a dedicated local music lessons page is a great local search magnet.)

B. What About the 313 “Blocked by robots.txt” URLs and External Errors?

In our raw crawl data, 313 internal URLs were marked Blocked by robots.txt alongside 381 external redirects. You do not need to worry about these:

• Squarespace’s Built-In robots.txt Rules (313 URLs): Squarespace automatically blocks search engines from crawling calendar download buttons (?format=ical across 173 events) and duplicate tag filter URLs (?tag=... across 133 links). That is standard Squarespace behavior and protects your site.
• Squarespace Image & Google Calendar Links (335 of the 381 External Redirects): Every event on your calendar has a “Google Calendar” link ([http://www.google.com/calendar/event](http://www.google.com/calendar/event)?..., 173 links) and Squarespace serves images from static1.squarespace.com (162 links). Both work normally for visitors.
• Expired External Ticket Links on Past Gigs (~15 External 404s): Old calendar events from 2019–2025 link to past ticket pages on regional venue and ticketing websites that have since been taken down by those venues. You only need to update external links if they are on a current page or an upcoming show.

3. Targeting Local Recording & Production Keywords (On-Page SEO)

Right now, a local musician searching Google for “[City] music producer,” “recording studio producer [City],” “mixing engineer [City],” or “demo recording [City]” will have a hard time finding your site because your Title Tags and H1 Headings do not include your location or core services:

• Current Homepage Title Tag: Example Sound Studio | A Producer to Keep You Productive (56 chars)
• Current Homepage H1 Heading: A producer to keep you productive
• Current /production Title Tag: Producer — Example Sound Studio (31 chars)
• Current /production H1 Heading: Do You Need A Producer?

Notice that neither your Title Tags nor your H1 headings mention your city, Music Producer, Recording, or Mixing. Unless someone is already searching for the brand name “Example Sound Studio,” Google has to guess what kind of producer you are (film, video, podcast, or music) and where you are located.

How to Optimize Your Core Pages for Local Search:

1. Put Your City + Your Service in the SEO Title (50–60 Characters): We have written exact, ready-to-paste SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions (<145 characters) for your core pages and blog posts in the Part 2 Action Plan Table below.
2. Use Your H1 Heading for the Primary Topic, and Keep Taglines as H2s:
   • On your Homepage, change the H1 from A producer to keep you productive to [City] Music Producer & Recording Engineer — Example Producer (or keep A producer to keep you productive as a styled H2 subheading right below it).
   • On your /production page, change the H1 from Do You Need A Producer? to Music Production, Recording & Mixing in [City], and make Do You Need A Producer? the first H2 subheading.
3. Add a Dedicated Local Studio Section on /production (and During Your Redesign):
   • On your /production page (and homepage), explicitly mention the local terms artists search for: full-band tracking (mentioning your regular engineering work at local partner studios as well as your own Example Sound Studio setup), remote and in-person mixing, pre-production and arrangement, vocal production, and singer-songwriter demo production.
   • Include your city and region in the footer of every page so Google associates your entire domain with your local metro area.

4. Cleaning Up Squarespace Redesign & Template Quirks

Since you are considering a redesign on Squarespace, here are four Squarespace-specific habits to build into the new design:

1. Change Collection Page Post Titles from H1 to H2 (/news and /events-calendar):
   • In Squarespace, your /news blog index page and /events-calendar page currently wrap every single listed blog post or event title in an <h1> tag — resulting in multiple H1 tags on /news and /events-calendar, and zero main H1 title for the page itself.
   • Similarly, one blog post (/news/music-teacher-how-to-use-a-metronome) has two H1 tags (How a Music Teacher Wants You to Use a Metronome and Click! Click! Click! Click!).
   • Redesign Fix: When choosing or customizing your Squarespace 7.1 template, set the Blog/Events Section Title to H1, and set Item Titles in the list view to H2 or H3. Inside individual blog posts, always use Heading 2 (H2) for section breaks instead of Heading 1.
2. Stop Duplicating Old Calendar Events Without Updating the URL Slug (173 Event Pages):
   • Currently, 173 of the 241 indexable pages on your site (71.8%) are old /events-calendar/ gig entries.
   • When you use Squarespace’s “Duplicate” button to copy a recurring gig, Squarespace tacks random 5-character codes onto the web address (.../band-live-at-downtown-venue-hjtm3-cak43-mn87k-lbf63) and keeps the same page title. That created 12 groups of duplicate event titles across 36 URLs, plus two broken URLs where a full Eventbrite web address was accidentally pasted into the Squarespace URL slug field (/events-calendar/https/wwweventbritecom/...).
   • Redesign Fix: If you duplicate an event in Squarespace, either type a clean URL slug with the date (like /events-calendar/downtown-venue-nov-2026) or periodically delete/archive multi-year-old routine bar gigs so your site isn’t 72% expired calendar pages.
3. Shorten Your Global Site Title Format so Blog & Event Titles Don’t Get Cut Off (152 Pages Over 60 Characters):
   • In Squarespace (Settings > SEO Appearance), your site automatically adds — Example Sound Studio (23 characters) to the end of every page title, and adds — Music, Recording Studio, And Lesson News — Example Sound Studio (66 characters!) to the end of every blog tag and category page. That causes 152 pages to exceed Google’s 60-character display limit. Google’s smart enough to just ignore the long slug, but you don’t want to count on Google being smart.
   • Redesign Fix: Shorten the automatic suffix in SEO Appearance to | Example Producer or | Example Sound (16–19 characters), and toggle ON “Hide from Search Results” for Blog Tag and Category pages.
4. Homepage Load Speed (2.503s TTFB):
   • Most of your pages respond in a snappy 0.48s to 0.62s, but the homepage ([https://www.example-studio.com/](https://www.example-studio.com/)) took 2.503 seconds to deliver its initial HTML (235 KB), which is right at Google’s 2.5-second limit. During your redesign, keep your homepage streamlined — use compressed JPEG/WebP photos (under 250 KB each) and place heavy third-party audio/video embeds further down the page or on your /production page so the homepage loads instantly on mobile phones.
   • It’s also possible that Squarespace has a setting to automatically minify photos, but I don’t work with Squarespace enough to know about it. Google “Squarespace automatically minify photos” and see if you’re missing a toggle switch somewhere.

5. Easy Copy-and-Paste Local Studio Schema (JSON-LD) for Google & AI

As noted in the glossary, JSON-LD Schema is a small block of code that tells Google Maps, Google Search, and AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) that Example Producer / Example Sound Studio is a verified local music production business.

You do not need to write any code yourself. Simply copy the block below, open Squarespace, go to Pages > Home > Gear Icon (Settings) > Advanced > Page Header Code Injection, and paste it in. This was generated by AI, by the way, but we tested it — it’s HTML, not JSON, so keep that in mind if you plug it into a validator on your own:

HTML

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": ["ProfessionalService", "MusicGroup"],
  "name": "Example Sound Studio — Example Producer",
  "alternateName": "Example Producer Music Production & Recording",
  "url": "https://www.example-studio.com/",
  "description": "Local music producer, recording engineer, mixer, and session bassist Example Producer helps artists write, record, mix, and release better music through Example Sound Studio.",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "addressLocality": "Your City",
    "addressRegion": "MO",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "areaServed": {
    "@type": "City",
    "name": "Your City"
  },
  "founder": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Example Producer",
    "jobTitle": "Music Producer, Audio Engineer & Bassist",
    "url": "https://www.example-studio.com/production"
  },
  "knowsAbout": [
    "Music Production",
    "Audio Recording",
    "Audio Mixing",
    "Mastering",
    "Session Bass",
    "Songwriting & Arrangement"
  ]
}
</script>

(Note: If your Squarespace plan is on the Personal tier, which disables Page Header Code Injection, you can paste this exact same code inside a Code Block anywhere at the bottom of your homepage or footer — Google reads it either way!)

Part 2: Ready-to-Paste SEO Titles & Meta Descriptions (Core Pages & Blog Posts)

To save you time, we have written optimized SEO Titles (50–60 characters) and SEO Descriptions (strictly under 145 characters so they never get cut off in Google) for all 5 of your core pages and a sample of your blog posts. These were generated by an AI, so read them over closely.

In Squarespace, you can paste these directly into each page or blog post’s Settings (Gear Icon) > SEO tab:

A. Core Website Pages (5 Pages)

B. Sample Blog Posts (/news/...)

Part 3: Step-by-Step DIY Squarespace Checklist

You can work through this checklist at your own pace — Items 1 through 4 take less than 20 minutes total and will give you the biggest boost in local search visibility:

• 1. Unhide Your /production and /production-lead-form Pages from Google (5 Mins): In Squarespace, go to Pages, click the Gear icon next to Production and Production Lead Form, click the SEO tab, and turn OFF “Hide Page from Search Results.”
• 2. Connect Free Google Search Console Inside Squarespace (5 Mins): In Squarespace, click Analytics > Search Keywords > Connect and sign in with your Google account. This automatically verifies your site with Google Search Console so you can request immediate indexing of your /production page and track local search clicks.
• 3. Update SEO Titles & Meta Descriptions on Your 5 Core Pages (10 Mins): Copy and paste the local SEO Titles and <145-character SEO Descriptions from Part 2 (Table A) into the SEO settings tab for your Homepage, /production, /production-lead-form, /events-calendar, and /news.
• 4. Add Local Recording & Mixing Keywords to Your Headings (10 Mins): On your Homepage and /production page, update the main Heading 1 (H1) so it explicitly mentions Music Producer, Recording & Mixing and your city (moving conversational taglines like “Do You Need A Producer?” into a Heading 2). Mention your city and state in your global site footer.
• 5. Fix the 4 Broken Internal Links via URL Mappings (5 Mins): Go to Settings > Developer Tools > URL Mappings and paste the four 301 redirect lines from Section 2A (/lessons, /lesson-lead-form, /audio-visual, and /news/artist-album-release-show).
• 6. Paste the Local Studio JSON-LD Schema Block onto Your Homepage (5 Mins): Copy the JSON-LD script from Section 5 and paste it into your Homepage’s Page Header Code Injection (or inside a Code Block in your footer).
• 7. Trim the Cut-Off Blog Post Meta Descriptions (10 Mins): Open the blog posts listed in Part 2 (Table B), click Settings > SEO, and paste the <145-character descriptions. While editing /news/music-teacher-how-to-use-a-metronome, change the Click! Click! Click! Click! subheading from Heading 1 to Heading 2.
• 8. Hide Thin Blog /tag/ and /category/ Archives from Search (2 Mins): Open your News (Blog) page settings (Gear Icon > SEO) and toggle ON the option to hide Tag and Category archive pages from search results.
• 9. Redesign Housekeeping — Clean Up Heading Hierarchy & Duplicate Event Slugs: When you refresh your Squarespace design, make sure blog/event list pages use H2 (not H1) for item titles, compress homepage photos under 250 KB so your homepage loads in under 1.5 seconds, and clean up old duplicated calendar events with -hjtm3-cak43 or pasted Eventbrite URLs in their slugs.
• 10. Link Your Website to Your Google Business Profile: If you haven’t already set up a free Google Business Profile for Example Sound Studio (which can be configured as a service-area business if you prefer not to publish a home address), link it directly to [https://www.example-studio.com/production](https://www.example-studio.com/production) so you appear in the local Google Maps 3-Pack when musicians search for a producer or recording studio.

Get Your Custom Technical SEO & AI Visibility Audit

Whether your site runs on WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, or Magento, hidden technical issues — like accidental noindex toggles, duplicate H1 tags, broken links, or missing local schema — can quietly keep your best pages out of Google Search and AI answers.

For a single low price (dependent on site size and complexity), Relay will run a full crawl and manual technical audit of your website. You will receive:

• A Custom Technical Audit & Action Plan: Written in plain English for your specific platform, with zero generic filler.
• Ready-to-Paste Titles, Meta Descriptions & Schema: Custom-written for your core pages so you can copy and paste them directly into your site.
• A 1-on-1 Phone Call or Zoom Walkthrough: We will hop on a call or Zoom meeting with you to go over the findings, answer your questions, and show you how to prioritize the fixes.

Contact Relay today to claim your website audit and schedule your walkthrough.