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What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is all about optimising a website's architecture and backend elements to boost its visibility and performance on search engines. It requires a strong collaboration between technical SEO specialists and web developers, especially for larger websites.

Technical SEO looks at aspects such as page load speed, site architecture, security, and internal linking, addressing any issues that might prevent search bots from properly crawling, indexing, and rendering your website.

Technical SEO vs On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO

Here’s a simple breakdown:

Technical SEO: Focuses on maintaining your website’s technical health by improving the code and infrastructure that allow search engines to crawl and index your site effectively.

On-Page SEO: Concerns itself with keyword research, content creation, and optimisation of individual elements like metadata (titles, descriptions, H1s).

Off-Page SEO: Involves building authority signals for your website through activities like link building, digital PR, and other promotional methods.

Technical SEO largely works at the code-level to optimise crawlability and indexing, whereas on-page SEO and off-page SEO focus on content and external reputation, respectively. These areas also overlap—for example, on-page SEO involves strategic internal linking, whereas technical SEO looks at the health of those links at a structural level.

Technical SEO’s Role in an Overall SEO Strategy

Technical SEO is a core component of a successful SEO strategy. It’s foundational—without a technically sound website, other SEO activities are largely futile.

In a comprehensive SEO campaign, technical SEO is usually addressed right at the beginning and is often the most extensive phase. It involves an in-depth audit to identify any indexing issues or technical barriers. For example, if a large section of the website lacks metadata or has missing content, technical SEO flags these issues, which can then be handled by on-page specialists.

Additionally, the off-page SEO team relies on the technical SEO audit to identify and resolve technical problems related to backlink profiles or link architecture. Essentially, technical SEO lays the groundwork upon which other SEO efforts can build, playing a key role especially in the early stages of an SEO campaign.

9 Common Technical SEO Tasks

Technical SEO specialists undertake a wide range of activities to keep a website healthy. Here are some of the core tasks involved:

1. Ensuring Accessibility and Indexing

Technical SEOs work to ensure that search engines can properly access and index your site’s content. This involves using tools like Google Search Console to uncover page indexing problems and validate that signals from robots.txt files, no-index tags, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps are consistent and clear.

2. Content Management System (CMS) Tasks

For technical SEO, the content management system (CMS) plays a vital role. Specialists often have to manage broader CMS work, such as deciding whether a CMS is SEO-friendly or choosing which platform to migrate to. Smaller tasks may be offloaded to on-page teams, but CMS-related work is often a shared responsibility.

3. Website Crawling

Using tools like Screaming Frog, technical SEOs analyse website crawling data, ensuring the crawlers are properly configured and that the website’s structure is optimised for effective crawling. They also manage crawlers to prevent accidental disruptions to the website, such as DDoS issues.

4. Domain Work and Migrations

SEO professionals make important decisions regarding domain names for SEO benefits and carry out both external and internal domain migrations. These migrations require careful redirect management to avoid issues like redirect chains that could impact SEO performance. Technical SEOs also tackle redirects not related to migrations, such as resolving legacy redirect chains.

5. Metadata Analysis and Issue Scoping

Technical SEO specialists scope out issues related to metadata, such as missing or erroneous tags, and provide recommendations to on-page SEO teams. They may also assist in generating metadata at scale using AI, ensuring the website remains optimised.

6. Top-Level Site Security

Ensuring a secure site is a key technical SEO responsibility. This involves implementing HTTPS, deploying HSTS headers, blocking potentially harmful external embeds, and maintaining general content security protocols to keep users safe.

7. Structured Data Deployment

Technical SEOs add structured data (schema) to help search engines better understand page content, increasing the chances of your pages appearing as rich snippets in search results. This structured data enriches Google’s view of your content.

8. Usability and Site Speed Optimisation

Technical SEO often works closely with web designers and developers to ensure that the website is both SEO-friendly and user-friendly. This includes resolving any site speed issues and ensuring that the website meets Core Web Vitals standards.

9. Internal Link Architecture and Site Structure

Technical SEOs are responsible for maintaining the health of internal link structures, such as addressing issues with navigation links pointing to redirects. They also manage broader site architecture problems, like dealing with faceted navigation filters that create an excessive number of URLs that need to be canonicalised.

Advanced Technical SEO Activities

Advanced technical SEO requires a deeper skill set and experience to tackle more complex issues effectively. Some of these advanced activities include:

1. Page Speed Optimisation and JavaScript Analysis

Page speed has become a complex aspect of SEO, going beyond compressing images and minifying scripts. Advanced technical SEOs now work on optimising how browsers load JavaScript to prevent page load bottlenecks. They use tools like Chrome DevTools to identify performance issues and work with senior developers to implement solutions like JavaScript parallelisation.

2. Log File Analysis

Log files can provide valuable information about how search bots are interacting with your website. By analysing these files, technical SEOs can determine if there are issues preventing certain pages from being crawled. This analysis helps identify opportunities for improving how search engines view and access the site.

3. Edge SEO

Edge SEO is a more advanced, niche area of SEO that involves implementing changes closer to the end-user through edge computing, as opposed to relying on central servers. This reduces latency, resulting in faster-loading pages, which can contribute positively to rankings.

Technical SEO Tools

Technical SEO relies heavily on specialised tools to perform various checks and audits. Here are some of the most commonly used tools for technical SEO tasks:

Google Search Console: Used for indexing checks, schema validation, and Core Web Vitals assessments.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider: A desktop crawler tool that helps identify technical issues by crawling the entire website.

Ahrefs: Provides a user-friendly site audit, highlighting key technical SEO issues that need addressing.

Lumar (formerly Deepcrawl): A good balance between data-heavy tools like Screaming Frog and insight-driven tools like Ahrefs.

Chrome DevTools: Useful for examining page speed issues and debugging site performance problems.

PageSpeed Insights: A Google tool that provides a deep analysis of page speed performance and highlights areas of improvement.

Screaming Frog Log File Analyser: Used for examining log files to understand crawler behaviour and to pinpoint crawl-related issues.

Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets: Essential for processing data extracted from other SEO tools.

Large-Scale CSV Manipulation Tools: For sites with a large volume of data, tools like Delimit and ModernCSV are often used to process information before importing into Excel.

Technical SEO: The Foundation of a Strong SEO Strategy

Technical SEO forms the backbone of a robust SEO strategy. By optimising a website’s architecture and eliminating barriers to crawling and indexing, it sets the stage for other SEO efforts—such as content creation and link building—to succeed.

With technical SEO addressing foundational issues like site speed, metadata, internal linking, and security, the rest of the SEO campaign can be built on a solid base, ensuring long-term success.

Need Professional Help with Technical SEO?

While it's possible to tackle technical SEO on your own, the complexity of optimising your website for speed, security, and crawlability can often be overwhelming. If you want to make sure every aspect is handled correctly and effectively, consider leaving the hard work to a professional. With the right expertise, technical SEO can give your site the best possible chance to rank well and perform smoothly.

POPULAR QUESTIONS

FAQs About
Technical SEO

Technical SEO plays a crucial role in ensuring your mobile site delivers a smooth user experience. By optimising elements like site speed, mobile responsiveness, and structured data, technical SEO helps your website load faster and perform better on mobile devices. This is especially important as Google prioritises mobile-first indexing, meaning your site's mobile version directly impacts your rankings.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is vital for ensuring a secure connection between the user’s browser and your server. Google considers HTTPS a ranking factor, favouring secure websites over those without encryption. Implementing HTTPS also provides trustworthiness to your visitors, which helps enhance user experience and potentially improve rankings.

Log file analysis helps you understand how search engine crawlers interact with your website. By examining server logs, you can identify which pages are being crawled, how often, and if there are any issues like blocked resources. This insight is invaluable for fine-tuning your site's crawlability and ensuring important pages are prioritised by search engines.

Ideally, a technical SEO audit should be conducted every 3-6 months, or after significant website changes like migrations or redesigns. Regular audits help identify and resolve technical issues that may affect your site's search engine visibility. Frequent checks can ensure that your website continues to meet the latest SEO standards and Google's guidelines.

Canonical tags help prevent duplicate content issues by indicating the preferred version of a webpage. They tell search engines which version should be prioritised, ensuring that the correct page gains visibility and authority. This is particularly useful for eCommerce sites or those with similar content across multiple pages.

JavaScript can enhance your site's functionality, but if not handled properly, it can hinder search engine crawlers from understanding your content. Technical SEO for JavaScript involves ensuring that crucial content is not blocked by scripts and is rendered correctly by search engines, improving your website's visibility and user experience.

Yes, technical SEO can significantly impact your Core Web Vitals scores. Core Web Vitals are metrics related to loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of your site. By optimising your site’s speed, reducing server response times, and enhancing stability (such as minimising layout shifts), you can improve these scores and provide a better user experience, which Google uses as a ranking factor.

Domain-level issues in technical SEO impact your entire website, such as domain migrations, site security (HTTPS), and overall crawl budget. Page-level issues, however, relate to individual pages, such as missing meta tags, duplicate content, and page speed problems. Addressing both types is critical for overall site health and search engine performance.

Server response time, often referred to as Time to First Byte (TTFB), measures how quickly a server responds to a request from the user's browser. A fast server response time helps ensure your website loads quickly, which is a crucial ranking factor for search engines. A slow server can lead to higher bounce rates and a poor user experience, negatively impacting SEO.

Technical SEO incorporates various security practices to protect your website, such as implementing HTTPS, monitoring for malware, and ensuring correct use of security headers like HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security). Enhancing security through technical SEO not only builds user trust but also prevents penalties that may arise due to security breaches or unsafe practices.
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When we first approached Yang, our website was struggling to be found online, and we couldn’t understand why. Yang quickly identified underlying technical issues that were holding us back, like multilingual setup, slow loading times, poorly structured links, and other overlooked technical aspects. He explained everything clearly, helped us fix all these problems, and then optimised our site for the best results. The change has been amazing—we’re now ranking highest among competitors and getting more traffic, which has translated into more customers.

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