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By Categories: Design, Tips & TricksComments Off on Technical SEO is Important but not a Magic Bullet

I see more jobs for technical SEO advertised than almost any other.  Perhaps because webmasters are hoping that all they need to do is raise some scores with Google, and that is going to win them top spots.  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 or 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 was perfect?  If the UX is horrible how is perfect technical SEO going to make it a site that people want to use?

It won’t. It can’t.

Hang on now, I’m not saying that.  If your site’s technical SEO is poor, it’s unlikely your site will rank as well as it should. All I am saying is technical SEO just allows your content, UX, E-A-T, and link-based SEO to have maximum effect.

Poor technical SEO can result in.

Our Process

Crawlability and Indexability

  • Robots.txt – We ensure important pages are crawlable and unnecessary ones are blocked.

  • Page Rendering – We ensure that to clients and search engines, your pages show people and search engines the expected content.

  • 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.

  • Noindex/Nofollow – Ensure non-important pages (e.g., login pages) or thin pages are not indexed.

Site Speed & Performance

  • Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS) – Check Google PageSpeed 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) 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 Problem we’ve recently Overcome

Pre-renderer Problem One.
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.

Pre-render Problem Two
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.

Mobile Enhanced Website Problem 1
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.  Major electronics site, we doubled organic traffic within 2 months after fixing this.

Summing it Up

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