The two options
A crawl-and-render assessment of whether pages are reachable, indexable and served correctly.
- You have never had one, or the last was over a year ago
- The site has migrated or changed platform recently
- Indexed page count does not match what you publish
A page-by-page assessment of whether existing content matches intent, has depth, and should be kept, merged or removed.
- You have published for years with no consolidation pass
- Several pages compete for the same query
- Traffic is flat despite steady publishing
How they differ
| Technical audit | Content audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Question answered | Can engines read this? | Is this worth reading? |
| Typical duration | One to three weeks | Three to six weeks |
| Output | Prioritised engineering backlog | Keep, merge, rewrite or remove per URL |
| Can invalidate the other | Yes — rendering faults look like thin content | No |
| Best first when | Almost always | Technical layer is already known clean |
What actually decides it
The dependency runs one way. A page that renders half its content to a crawler looks thin in a content audit, and the recommendation that follows — rewrite it — is wasted work on a page that was fine. Technical findings change content conclusions; content findings never change technical ones.
Where both are needed, the sequencing still saves money. Running technical first narrows the content audit to pages that are genuinely underperforming rather than pages that merely appear to be. On large sites that difference can be thousands of URLs, and content audits are priced by URL count in effort terms.
The exception is a site with a small, hand-built page set and no history of platform changes. There the technical pass finishes in days and finds nothing, and the real work is entirely in the content. Say so rather than billing a fortnight to confirm a clean bill of health.
Questions
Can one audit cover both?
Combined audits exist and work for smaller sites. Above roughly a thousand URLs they tend to go shallow on both. Sequencing them keeps each thorough and lets the technical findings scope the content pass properly.
How often should each be repeated?
Technical roughly annually, and immediately after any migration or replatform. Content every eighteen to twenty-four months, or whenever a topic area has been published into heavily without a consolidation pass.
What if the technical audit finds nothing?
Then you have ruled out the constraint that invalidates everything downstream, which is worth knowing. We would tell you plainly that the site is clean and move to content rather than manufacturing findings to justify the engagement.
Related services
- Technical SEO Audit — SEO
- Topical Authority — SEO
- On-Page SEO — SEO
- SEO Analytics — SEO
Still not sure?
Thirty minutes with a senior strategist. We pull your live visibility while we talk and tell you which of these two is actually binding for you — including when the answer is neither. Book a discovery call →