Technical SEO is about Magic
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We wish the above image were true.  It’s not.

I see more technical SEO jobs advertised than almost any other. Why so? Many website owners hope that all they need to do to get top rankings is raise some scores with Google. That would be nice, but it’s just not true.

Think like Google for a minute.

If a site is not overly appealing to look at, not nice to use, and has content that is not best in its niche, why would Google value it and rank it high just because the technical SEO is perfect?

Well, it wouldn’t, and it doesn’t.

Technical SEO

That said, technical SEO is still essential. If your site UX, content, and links ARE good, but your technical SEO is poor (e.g., your pages are slow, poorly titled, have a bad scheme, and your robots and canonical tags are poorly done), Google will punish your rankings.

Technical SEO is to Websites What Diet is to Athletes

  • Eating the same diet as an elite athlete won’t make you an elite athlete.
  • But if a person capable of being an elite athlete because of their natural gifts, training regime, and work ethic also sticks to the perfect diet and takes the right supplements…. Well, that diet is going to make or break it for them.

Just don’t think the diet by itself is going to be enough.
It’s not.

Our Technical SEO Checklist

Crawlability and Indexability

  • Robots.txt – We ensure important pages are crawlable and unnecessary/damaging ones are blocked from search engines.

  • Page Rendering – Your pages should show both people and search engines the expected content at all resolutions.

  • XML Sitemap – Should be properly structured and submitted to Google Search Console.

  • Canonical Tags – Set up to prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred URL.

  • Check for the Unexpected – Is Google finding/indexing/failing to redirect pages from an older site version? Choosing its own (wrong) canonical pages over your preferred ones? Hidden rankings killers like these need to be found.

Site Speed & Performance

  • Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) – Check Google Page Speed Insights and optimize performance metrics.

  • Minification & Compression – Enable Gzip/Brotli compression and minify CSS/JS.

  • Image Optimization – Use WebP/AVIF, lazy loading, and correct sizing.

  • Caching – Check or implement server-side (eg. Nginx/Redis etc) and browser caching.

Mobile-Friendliness

  • Responsive Design – Ensure proper rendering across all devices.

  • Mobile Usability Errors – Check Google Search Console for issues.

  • Touch-Friendly Elements – Ensure buttons and links are easy to tap.

  • Google Rendered Version – Ensure it contains the same content as the desktop version.

Internal Linking & Redirects

  • Broken Links – Identify and fix broken internal/external links.

  • Redirect Chains & Loops – Resolve excessive 301/302 redirects.

  • Orphan Pages – Ensure all important pages are internally linked. (Though there is a case for intentionally orphaning some pages)

  • Breadcrumb Navigation – Improves user experience and internal linking.

Structured Data & Indexing

  • Schema Markup – Implement correct structured data (e.g., FAQ, Product, Organization). Knowing which Schema Google rewards most is important.

  • Duplicate Content – Identify using canonical tags and proper URL structuring.

  • Pagination & Infinite Scroll Handling – Ensure correct implementation for SEO.

Some Recent Technical SEO Problems We’ve Overcome

1. A broken Pre-render
Pre-rendered websites are often presented to Google for a number of reasons. They are faster, and thus, it is easier for Google to crawl. They can contain the content of the desktop in the design of the mobile to ensure all content is found and valued. That’s fine. but sometimes, they fail.

Here the problem was the pre-rendered version was failing, so Google saw only half the content. Even white pages sometimes Two very large clients had this problem in the last 12 months and were unaware of it until we showed them what was happening.

2. Google version said “Go Away!”
The page shown to Google had coding that told Google “Go away” even though a quick check of the code when viewing the site didn’t show it. Even crawling the site with a tool like Screaming Frog, the problem was not visible.

3. Mobile version missing useful data
The product team had made a modified mobile version. It was simpler and better for mobile users who would otherwise have to scroll and scroll. But the modified version meant Google couldn’t see or value all the content desktop users could see. That’s not good. We doubled organic traffic for this major electronics site within 2 months after fixing this.

Summing it Up

Technical SEO is important for your site’s success, but it won’t achieve it alone. If you know what you are doing (we do), technical SEO should not take long to perform, and the focus should then move to content, UX, and links. We can expediently address your technical SEO and then move on to the real work.