What technical SEO does
Before a page can rank, three things have to happen. Google has to discover the page, usually by following a link or reading a sitemap. It has to crawl and render the page, which means downloading it and running any code needed to see the content. Then it has to decide to index the page, adding it to the set of pages that can appear in results.
Technical SEO makes each step work. It does not replace good content or local signals; it makes sure they are seen.
Signs your site has technical problems
- New pages take weeks to appear in Google, or never appear.
- Google Search Console shows many pages as "Crawled – currently not indexed" or "Discovered – currently not indexed".
- Rankings dropped after a website redesign or platform change.
- The site feels slow on a phone, especially on a mobile connection.
- Old URLs show errors instead of redirecting to new pages.
- The same content is reachable at several different addresses.
What our technical SEO work covers
| Area | What we check and fix |
|---|---|
| Indexing | Which pages Google has indexed, which it excluded and why |
| Crawlability | robots.txt rules, internal links, orphan pages, blocked resources |
| Rendering | Whether content loaded by JavaScript is visible to Google |
| Site speed | Core Web Vitals and load time on mobile |
| Mobile usability | Layout, tap targets and readable text on phones |
| Duplicate content | Canonical tags, URL variations, www vs non-www, http vs https |
| Redirects | Broken redirects, redirect chains, 404 errors on valuable URLs |
| Site structure | Click depth, hub pages, breadcrumbs, URL structure |
| Structured data | Valid LocalBusiness, Service, BreadcrumbList and other markup |
| Security | HTTPS everywhere, mixed content warnings |
Our technical SEO services
Technical SEO audit
A technical SEO audit crawls the whole site, reviews Google Search Console data and produces a prioritized list of technical issues with clear fix instructions for your developer or for us.
Indexing optimization
Indexing optimization finds out why important pages are missing from Google and fixes the causes, from accidental noindex tags to thin or duplicate pages that Google chooses not to index.
Site architecture
Website architecture optimization organizes pages into a clear structure of hubs and child pages, so search engines understand which pages matter most and visitors can find any page in a few clicks.
Core Web Vitals and site speed
Google measures page experience partly through Core Web Vitals, based on real visits from Chrome users. A page passes when at least 75 percent of visits meet each threshold:
| Metric | Measures | Good threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | How fast the main content appears | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | How quickly the page responds to taps and clicks | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | How much the layout jumps while loading | 0.1 or less |
INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. Speed is not the strongest ranking factor, but slow pages lose visitors, and on a local service site, a lost visitor is often a lost call. Common fixes include compressing images, removing unused scripts, reserving space for images and embeds, and choosing faster hosting.
robots.txt, noindex and canonical tags
Three controls are often confused, and mixing them up is one of the most common causes of technical SEO problems:
| Control | What it does | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Tells search engines which URLs they may crawl | Does not reliably keep a page out of the index if other sites link to it |
| noindex | Tells search engines not to show a page in results | Only works if the page can be crawled, so it must not also be blocked in robots.txt |
| Canonical tag | Suggests which of several similar URLs is the main version | Is a hint, not a command; Google may choose a different canonical |
A classic mistake is blocking a page in robots.txt and adding noindex to it. Because Google cannot crawl the page, it never sees the noindex instruction, and the URL can remain in the index.
Structured data for local businesses
Structured data describes a business and its pages in a format search engines read directly. For local businesses, the most useful types are LocalBusiness, or a more specific type such as Plumber or Dentist, Organization, Service, BreadcrumbList and, where relevant, Product or Event. We add markup that matches the visible content, validate it, and keep it consistent with your Google Business Profile.
A quick technical health check for owners
You can spot some technical issues yourself:
- Search Google for site:yourdomain.com and see roughly how many pages appear, and whether any unexpected pages do.
- Open your site on your phone using mobile data, not Wi-Fi, and note how long the main content takes to appear.
- Type your domain with http:// and with and without www. Each version should end at the same https address.
- Open Google Search Console and look at the Page indexing report for excluded pages you did not expect.
If anything looks wrong, a technical audit will find the cause.
Mobile first
Google now uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking. If content, links or structured data exist only on the desktop version, Google may not see them. We check that the mobile version contains everything that matters and works well at phone size.
Technical SEO for local business websites
Local business sites have some recurring technical issues:
- Website builder limitations, such as fixed URL formats, heavy scripts or limited control over titles and structured data.
- Duplicate location pages created by templates, with the same content at many URLs.
- Old pages from previous websites that still receive links but now return errors.
- Tracking scripts for chat, call tracking, ads and analytics that slow down the site.
- Contact forms that rely on scripts which break on some phones.
We fix what can be fixed on your current platform and tell you clearly when a platform limitation is holding you back.
Website redesigns and migrations
A redesign or a move to a new platform is one of the riskiest moments for SEO. URLs change, content is rewritten, and pages are sometimes left out. Without careful planning, rankings and leads can drop for months.
We protect migrations with a simple process: a full list of current URLs and their traffic, a redirect map from every old URL to its best new equivalent, a pre-launch check on a staging site, and close monitoring of Search Console and leads for several weeks after launch.
How we work with your developer
Many technical fixes need changes to your website's code, theme or server. We can make the changes directly if you give us access, or write clear instructions for your developer or web host. Each instruction explains the problem, the fix, how to check it worked and how important it is, so developers can prioritize without needing SEO expertise.
How we measure technical improvements
Technical results show up in Google Search Console first: more pages indexed, fewer errors, better Core Web Vitals, and more pages receiving impressions. Then they show up in rankings and leads, as content that was previously invisible starts to compete. We report on all of these, so you can see the connection between technical fixes and business results.
Where technical SEO fits
Technical SEO is the foundation. On-page SEO makes each page relevant, local SEO builds location signals and the Google profile, and links and reviews build trust. None of these work well if the foundation is broken. That is why every complete SEO audit starts with technical health, and why local SEO management includes regular technical checks.