How to Fix Technical SEO Issues Using Ahrefs (Without Getting Overwhelmed)

Let’s be real.

You can write the most amazing content in the world, but if your website has broken links, crawl errors, slow load times, or a busted sitemap — Google’s going to treat you like a ghost.

Invisible.

Ignored.

Buried on page 12 of the search results with your dreams.

Now the good news? You don’t need to be a full-blown tech wizard to fix this stuff. You just need the right tools, a bit of patience, and a tiny dose of nerd energy.

Enter: Ahrefs.

In this raw, no-fluff guide, I’m going to walk you through how to find and fix technical SEO issues using Ahrefs — even if you’re not a developer, not an SEO consultant, and you still think Java is just a type of coffee.

Let’s dig in.

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🛠️ First, What Is Technical SEO (and Why Should You Care)?

You already know about keywords and backlinks and blogging, right?

Cool.

Technical SEO is the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes your site crawlable, indexable, and lovable to search engines.

Think of it like this:

• Content = your front door

• Technical SEO = the plumbing, wiring, and foundation

If the foundation is cracked? Everything else falls apart.

Here’s what technical SEO covers:

• Site speed

• Mobile-friendliness

• Broken links

• Redirect issues

• Crawl errors

• Duplicate content

• Structured data

• Indexability

• HTTPS vs HTTP

• XML sitemaps

• Canonical tags

Sounds overwhelming? Chill. We’ll break it down — and Ahrefs makes it stupid simple.

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🔍 Step 1: Run a Site Audit in Ahrefs

Okay, this is your starting line.

Ahrefs has a Site Audit tool built specifically for finding technical SEO problems.

How to set it up:

1. Go to your Ahrefs dashboard.

2. Click on Site Audit > + New Project.

3. Enter your domain.

4. Choose how Ahrefs will crawl (default settings are fine).

5. Hit Start.

Then go make coffee. Or stretch. It takes a few minutes.

When it’s done, Ahrefs will give you an overall Health Score.

💡 PRO TIP: Anything above 85% is generally solid. But we’re not aiming for “okay” — we want smooth, blazing fast, crawlable sites that Google loves.

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📋 Step 2: Look at the Top Issues First

Once your crawl is complete, you’ll see a dashboard like this:

• Health Score

• of URLs crawled

• of URLs with issues

• Top Issues (Red, Orange, Yellow)

Don’t panic. Most sites have issues.

Focus on the following first:

🔴 Critical Errors (Red)

These are hurting your rankings right now.

• 404 Pages

• Broken internal/external links

• Server errors (5xx)

• Massive redirect chains

🟠 Warnings (Orange)

Not as urgent, but important for overall SEO health.

• Slow page speeds

• Missing meta descriptions

• Duplicate content

• Non-HTTPS pages

• Missing alt text

🟡 Notices (Yellow)

Good to fix eventually.

• Low word count

• Missing H1 tags

• Meta too long/short

• Canonical tag inconsistencies

Start at the top of the list and work your way down.

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🔧 Step 3: Fix Broken Links (Internal + External)

Let’s talk about link rot — it happens all the time.

You delete a page. Change a URL. Someone links to you and their page disappears. Boom: you’ve got broken links.

Ahrefs shows these under:

Site Audit > Internal pages > Issues > 4XX errors

What to do:

• Internal broken links → Find them and update to correct URL or remove the link.

• External broken links → Either replace the link with a better one, or just remove it.

• Set up redirects if the old URL still gets traffic.

This one tweak alone can help your SEO — and improve user experience big time.

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🧭 Step 4: Redirect Loops & Chains

You know when you click a link and it keeps redirecting?

That’s bad.

Ahrefs shows these under:

Site Audit > Issues > Redirect chain or Redirect loop

Fix:

• Redirect chains = Too many redirects between Page A → B → C. Clean this up. Just go A → C directly.

• Redirect loops = A redirects to B, which redirects to A. That’s infinite. Fix the loop or remove the redirect entirely.

Why it matters: Google hates wasting crawl budget. You want everything clean and fast.

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🚦 Step 5: Improve Crawlability & Indexability

This is where a lot of bloggers go wrong.

If Google can’t crawl your site, it can’t index your pages. Which means… no rankings.

What to check in Ahrefs:

• Blocked by robots.txt

• Noindex tag present

• Pages with canonical errors

• Orphan pages (pages not linked to)

What to do:

• Fix robots.txt rules if they block key pages (e.g., /blog/)

• Remove accidental “noindex” tags

• Add internal links to orphan pages so they’re found

• Use proper canonical tags if you have similar content across URLs

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📱 Step 6: Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means if your site sucks on mobile… it sucks for Google.

Ahrefs doesn’t show everything here, but it will flag mobile issues like:

• Font too small

• Clickable elements too close

• Viewport not set

Fix those. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test too just to be safe.

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⚡ Step 7: Speed Things Up

Site speed is now a ranking factor.

Ahrefs flags slow pages under:

Site Audit > Performance > Slow loading pages

Fixes:

• Compress large images (use WebP or tools like TinyPNG)

• Use lazy loading

• Remove unnecessary plugins/scripts

• Enable browser caching

• Use a CDN (Cloudflare is free and great)

• Upgrade hosting if needed

If your pages take more than 3 seconds to load? You’re losing visitors and rankings.

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📈 Step 8: Clean Up Your Meta Tags

Meta tags don’t carry as much weight as before, but they still matter — especially for CTR (click-through rate).

Ahrefs flags:

• Missing meta titles/descriptions

• Duplicates

• Meta too long/short

Fix:

• Add a unique title + meta description for every important page

• Keep titles under 60 characters

• Keep descriptions under 160

• Make them catchy. Think like a copywriter.

Example:
Bad: “Home”
Better: “Affordable Web Design Services | Fast Turnaround & SEO-Friendly”

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🗺️ Step 9: Check Your Sitemap + Robots.txt

These are the two files most people mess up.

Ahrefs will alert you if:

• Sitemap is missing or outdated

• Robots.txt is blocking important pages

What to do:

• Submit a proper sitemap via Google Search Console

• Make sure all key pages are not blocked by robots.txt

• Add a link to your sitemap inside your robots.txt file

Easy wins.

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📉 Step 10: Find and Remove Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can confuse search engines, cause cannibalization, and hurt rankings.

Ahrefs flags:

• Duplicate titles

• Duplicate content blocks

• Near-identical URLs with different parameters

Fix:

• Merge duplicate pages

• Use canonical tags correctly

• Rewrite overlapping content so each page has a unique value

• Use 301 redirects if you no longer need the duplicates

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🔄 Bonus: Re-Run Audits Monthly

SEO is never one-and-done.

Sites break. Plugins update. Pages get deleted. Stuff happens.

So re-run your Ahrefs site audit every month or two.

It’s like a technical check-up — and it keeps your rankings healthy.

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😬 Common Mistakes to Avoid

Let’s keep it real for a second.

Here’s where most people mess up:

• ❌ Ignoring 404s — they build up like digital trash

• ❌ Letting site speed tank due to bloated themes

• ❌ Having no internal linking strategy

• ❌ Forgetting about mobile UX

• ❌ Setting pages to “noindex” by accident (big one)

• ❌ Thinking “my site is too small to care”

Wrong. Even 5-page blogs can benefit big from clean technical SEO.

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🧠 Final Thoughts: Technical SEO Is Your Secret Edge

Here’s what most bloggers and website owners don’t realize:

You don’t need 10,000 backlinks.
You don’t need to publish daily.

If your technical SEO is dialed in —
your existing content ranks better, faster, and longer.

Ahrefs makes it easy.

You get a dashboard, a checklist, and a fix-it guide in one.

Just don’t let the tech stuff scare you off. Every fix = one step closer to better rankings, more traffic, and higher conversions.

Now go run that audit, patch up those cracks, and watch your site start to fly.