SEO
Technical SEO Services
Technical SEO is the work under the hood: making sure Google can reach, read and index your pages, and that they load fast. If pages are missing from Google, or traffic fell after a redesign, the cause is usually here.
# What to send for a quote
Your website URL
Any recent migration, redesign or platform change
Whether Search Console is set up for the site
What technical SEO is
Make sure Google can reach, read and index every page
Our technical SEO services deal with the problems that stop Google from crawling, indexing and ranking your pages: slow load times, broken redirects, pages missing from Google, duplicate URLs and structured data errors. It is one part of our SEO services, and usually the first part, because content on a page Google cannot read does nothing.
Technical SEO is about how the site works, not what it says. Rewriting titles, headings and copy is on-page SEO, a separate service.
- Crawling
- Indexing
- Rendering
- Speed and Core Web Vitals
- Structured data
- Redirects and migrations
Why it matters
What technical SEO changes for a website
Pages that can actually appear
A page set to noindex or blocked in robots.txt cannot rank, however good it is. Fixing access is often the quickest win a site has.
Rankings kept through a redesign
A migration without a redirect map throws away rankings that took years to build. Mapping each old URL to its closest new page keeps that value.
Faster pages on mobile data
Heavy images and scripts slow pages down on phones. Google measures this, and so do visitors who leave before the page finishes loading.
How we do it
What our technical SEO services cover
Each area has its own set of checks; the checklist below shows a sample. See how technical work is scoped on our SEO pricing page. We agree before work starts whether we make the fixes ourselves or hand a fix list to your developer.
Crawling
robots.txt rules, internal links to every important page, orphan pages, redirect chains and server errors.
Indexing
Which pages Google has indexed, why others are excluded, noindex and canonical tags, and duplicate URLs.
Rendering
Content and links that only appear after JavaScript runs, and whether Google sees the same page a visitor does.
Speed and Core Web Vitals
Google's measures of loading, responsiveness and layout shift, from real user data where available. Image weight, scripts, fonts and hosting.
Site structure and structured data
URL patterns, click depth to key pages, XML sitemaps, and Organization, Product, Article and Breadcrumb markup that is valid and matches the page.
Migrations and international sites
Old URLs mapped to new ones, HTTPS and www consistency, and hreflang for sites serving several countries. On WordPress, much of this comes down to plugins and hosting, covered under WordPress SEO.
Audit checklist
A sample of the checks, ranked by severity
An audit that lists hundreds of issues with equal weight is hard to act on. This is part of a typical technical SEO checklist, with the severity each problem usually carries when it fails.
- Fix now
- Blocks important pages from Google or loses traffic the site already has.
- Fix this month
- Holds back rankings on pages that matter.
- Fix when convenient
- Real, but a small effect.
Technical audit checklist
Example checklist14 checks · 6 areas| Check | If it fails | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| Crawling | ||
| robots.txt does not block important pages, CSS or JavaScript | Google cannot fetch the page, or cannot render it the way visitors see it. | Fix now |
| Key pages return 200, with no 5xx server errors | Pages that error out drop from the index if the problem persists. | Fix now |
| Every important page has internal links pointing to it | Orphan pages are found late or not at all. | Fix this month |
| Redirects go straight to the final URL in one hop | Each extra hop slows crawling and adds a point of failure. | Fix when convenient |
| Indexing | ||
| Pages meant to rank are not set to noindex | A noindex tag removes the page from Google entirely, often left over from a staging site. | Fix now |
| Each page has one canonical URL, and duplicates point to it | Signals split across copies, and Google may pick the wrong one to show. | Fix this month |
| The XML sitemap lists only live, indexable URLs | A sitemap full of redirects and errors makes Google trust it less. | Fix when convenient |
| Speed | ||
| Core Web Vitals pass on mobile: LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 | Slow, jumpy pages lose visitors and fall behind faster competitors. | Fix this month |
| Images are sized for the screen and compressed | One oversized hero image can be most of a page's weight. | Fix this month |
| Rendering | ||
| Main content and links are in the HTML, not only after JavaScript runs | Google may index a near-empty page, or index it late. | Fix this month |
| Structured data | ||
| Markup validates and matches what the page shows | Invalid markup is ignored and rich results are lost. | Fix this month |
| No markup for content that is not on the page, such as reviews | Misleading markup breaks Google's guidelines and can trigger a manual action. | Fix now |
| Migrations and hreflang | ||
| Old URLs 301-redirect to their closest new page | Without redirects, rankings and links built on old URLs are lost. | Fix now |
| hreflang tags are reciprocal across country versions | Shoppers in Dubai may land on the Pakistan page, or the reverse. | Fix this month |
Example checklist, not findings from a client site. Our technical SEO audit checklist walks through the same areas if you want to check the basics yourself.
Find out what is keeping your pages out of Google
Send your website and tell us about any recent migration or redesign. We reply with what the audit will cover and a quote.
Get a quote
Request a technical SEO audit
Send your website and tell us about any recent migration, redesign or platform change. We reply with where we would start and a quote for that scope.
- Your website URL
- Any recent migration, redesign or platform change
- Whether Search Console is set up for the site
Technical SEO: common questions
What is the difference between technical SEO and on-page SEO?
Technical SEO deals with how the site works: crawling, indexing, speed, redirects and structured data. On-page SEO deals with what is written on each page: titles, headings, copy and internal links. A site needs both, but technical problems come first, because Google cannot rank a page it cannot read.
What does a technical SEO audit include?
A thorough audit covers crawling, indexing, JavaScript rendering, page speed and Core Web Vitals, site structure, structured data, redirects, XML sitemaps, robots.txt and, for multi-country sites, hreflang. Each finding should come with its impact, the pages affected and the fix.
Who makes the fixes after a technical audit?
Whoever has access to the code and settings. Many fixes touch server settings, theme code, plugins or redirects, so they need a developer or admin login. A useful fix list names the affected URLs and says exactly what to change, so the person with access can act on it without a call.
Will technical fixes improve rankings on their own?
They remove what is holding good pages back. If the pages are strong and Google simply could not reach them, the effect can be large. If the content does not match what people search for, technical fixes alone will not change much. That is where on-page SEO comes in.
Should I get a technical audit before a redesign or migration?
Yes, and another one after launch. The first records which URLs have rankings and links, so each one can be redirected to its closest new page. The second catches what the launch broke: missing redirects, pages set to noindex, or a staging site blocking Google.