My Website Looked Fine Until I Checked Semrush: What I Found Behind the Scenes

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I used to think that as long as a site looked good, loaded quickly, and had some interesting content, then you were on the right track. The pages were clean, the images were good and the navigation was simple. To the user it all looked fine.

But then I started to pay attention to what was going on behind the scenes.

A site could be visually stunning and still have all sorts of problems lurking underneath the surface: broken links, missing page titles, spurious redirects, slow-loading bits, pages that are simply impossible for search engines to index. You can easily overlook these if you’re only looking at the visual presentation. They can also make it significantly more difficult for people to find the site via search.

That realization changed how I approach website maintenance. Instead of checking only the visible parts of a site, I started treating technical SEO as a regular part of keeping a website healthy. Tools like Semrush helped me turn that process into something more structured and manageable.

Step 1: Run a Website Audit Before Guessing What Is Wrong

My first port of call is to check the site rather than making some random change and hoping that that’ll fix it.

With Semrush, we use the Site Audit tool to go through a site and find any technical or on-page issues. You set up a project, you run the scan and then you look at the report to see which pages are in need of work and which issues are the most critical.

The report categorizes the findings in a way that’s very helpful, so I know where to start. Rather than going through each page manually, I use the results to produce a clear list of things to do.

I don’t just go on the Site Health Score either. It’s a useful first glance but the actual issues that the score is highlighting are more important. A single broken page that’s getting a lot of traffic is going to be more important than a number of smaller issues.

The goal is not to achieve a perfect score overnight. It’s about identifying any problems that could stop visitors and search engines from getting the most out of the site.

Step 2: Work Through This Five-Point Website Health Checklist

Once the audit is complete, I focus on five areas that are easy to miss during a normal visual review.

1. Check for broken links. Click on the key internal links and have a look at any errors the audit produces. A broken link can majorly disrupt the user experience and make the site look neglected. If a page has been superseded, then update the link to point to the new page.
2. Review page titles and descriptions. Every significant page should have a pertinent title and a useful meta description. I’ll check for missing or duplicated titles and ensure they match the page content. Good titles are, of course, vital to search engine optimization and give the reader a clear idea of what the page is about.
3. Investigate redirects. Redirects are useful when pages are moved, but too many of them can be very confusing and slow down navigation. I ensure old URLs redirect to the correct page and that internal links point directly to the pages they should.
4. Look at loading performance. A page can look fantastic when it loads, but if it loads slowly, that’s going to annoy the visitor. Large images, loads of scripts and all the other heavy files can be the cause of slow loading. I use the audit to pick up on those sorts of issues and then retest the pages once I’ve fixed them.
5. Confirm indexability. This is one of the most important checks. A page can be published and accessible to me without being eligible for indexing. I investigate unexpected noindex directives, robots.txt restrictions, canonical tags, and other signals that may affect how search engines discover and index important pages.

Semrush helps identify potential problems, but I still review each finding before making any changes. Some redirects are intentional and some pages should not be in the search results at all. Fixing things without knowing what they’re for can in fact create new problems.

Step 3: Fix the Important Issues and Check Again

Once I’ve established what the problem is, I look first at the issues that are going to have an impact on key pages, search results, or how people are using the site. These are the ones I fix using the content management system, the hosting configuration or by asking a developer for assistance (depending on what’s required).

Then I run another audit to check that the fixes have actually worked. The second audit is important as something that looks correct in the editor may well not be fixing the actual problem.

For anyone starting out, Getting Started with Semrush: A Tutorial for Navigating the Essentials is a useful guide to setting up a dashboard, exploring Site Audit, tracking rankings, and understanding other essential workflows.

I also remember that you don’t have to have one tool that does it all. Semrush One brings together the SEO and AI search functionality, but you can absolutely use other tools to assist with the analytics, the performance checks, the various website tasks, etc. I’ll pick the tool I need rather than one that’s just the most popular.

A Better Website Starts Behind the Scenes

The big thing I’ve learned is that website maintenance is about so much more than just the look of the site. A good design is important, but that doesn’t mean that search engines can find the key pages or that the user is going to have a good experience.

Making a website audit part of my routine gives me a clearer picture of what needs attention before small issues become bigger obstacles. With Semrush as part of that workflow, I have a more organized way to investigate technical problems, prioritize fixes, and monitor improvements over time.

A site doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. It just has to be useful, easy to use, and well maintained. Frequently, the best bits are the ones that the user never actually notices, but they just end up enjoying every time they come to the site.