Search & AI · Technical SEO services
Technical SEO: Make the Site Easy to Crawl, Render and Rank
Content and links cannot perform on a site search engines struggle to crawl, render or understand. Technical SEO removes those obstacles, and delivers the work in a form engineers can pick up and ship.
- Best for
- Large, JavaScript-heavy or recently rebuilt sites, and any site about to migrate
- Works alongside
- Web development, content SEO and analytics
- Typical horizon
- Audit in 2 to 4 weeks; effect follows release and recrawl, often weeks
- Measured in
- Indexed versus intended pages, Core Web Vitals, organic visits to fixed templates
In short
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the part of search engine optimisation concerned with how a website is built and served, as opposed to what it says. It makes sure search engines can discover every important URL, fetch it, render it as a visitor would see it, and store the right version in their index. The work covers robots rules, sitemaps, redirects, canonical tags, JavaScript rendering, internal linking, page speed, structured data and site migrations, and is delivered through changes to code and configuration.
The problem
Signs it is time to rethink Technical SEO.
- 01
Important pages are not indexed, and nobody knows why.
- 02
The site relies on JavaScript that search engines render poorly.
- 03
Core Web Vitals are failing.
- 04
A migration or redesign is coming and rankings are at risk.
Why Technical SEO matters
Technical problems are silent. Traffic does not fall with an error message; it simply never arrives. Because they affect templates, one fix can lift thousands of pages at once.
What is included
What do our Technical SEO services include?
Crawlability, indexation, rendering, speed and structured data, delivered as developer-ready tickets. The scope is set by the audit: you get the parts you need, in the order that pays back soonest.
- 01
Crawling and indexation
Search engines spend a finite amount of attention on each site. We check that it goes to pages you want found, and that every signal about which version to index points the same way.
- Robots.txt and meta robots rules
- XML sitemaps that list only indexable URLs
- Canonical tags, redirects and status codes
- Parameter, filter and pagination handling
- Search Console indexing reports explained
- 02
JavaScript and rendering
Google renders JavaScript, but as a separate step that can be delayed and can fail, and other crawlers render far less. We compare the HTML your server sends with the page a browser builds, and close the gaps that matter.
- Raw HTML compared with rendered output
- Server-side rendering or pre-rendering options
- Links crawlable as real anchor elements
- Metadata and canonicals present before scripts run
- Lazy-loaded content that search engines can reach
- 03
Site architecture and internal linking
How pages link to each other tells search engines which ones matter and how topics relate. Important pages buried five clicks deep, or linked from nowhere, tend to be crawled rarely and ranked poorly.
- Click depth to commercial pages
- Orphan pages found and linked
- URL structure and consistency
- Navigation, breadcrumbs and hub pages
- Hreflang for multi-language and multi-region sites
- 04
Page speed and Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals measure loading, responsiveness and visual stability as real users experience them. We trace each failing metric to the template and component responsible, so developers know exactly what to change.
- Largest Contentful Paint traced to its cause
- Interaction to Next Paint and script weight
- Cumulative Layout Shift from images, ads and fonts
- Field data read alongside lab tests
- Image, font and third-party script loading
- 05
Structured data
Schema markup describes what a page contains in a vocabulary search engines agree on. It supports rich results where a search engine offers them, and helps machines identify your organisation, products and authors without guessing.
- Markup generated from templates, not by hand
- Organisation, product, article and breadcrumb types
- Markup matched to visible page content
- Validation in testing tools and Search Console
- Errors and warnings monitored after releases
- 06
Migrations and redesigns
Changing domain, platform or URL structure is the riskiest event in a site's search life, because signals built up over years must be carried to new addresses. Most losses come from steps that were skipped, not from bad luck.
- Full inventory of existing URLs and their value
- One-to-one redirect map
- Staging site crawled before launch
- Launch-day checks on redirects, tags and sitemaps
- Monitoring of indexation and traffic afterwards
How it works
How does Google get from a URL to an indexed page?
A page passes through a pipeline before it can appear for any search. Each stage has its own ways of failing, and they produce different symptoms, which is why diagnosis starts with finding the stage where a page stopped.
- 1
Discovery
Google learns a URL exists from links on pages it already knows, or from a sitemap.
What we doMake sure important pages are linked internally and listed in clean sitemaps.
- 2
Crawl
Googlebot requests the URL if robots.txt allows it, at a rate your server can handle.
What we doRemove crawl traps, fix error responses and redirect chains, and stop waste on low-value URLs.
- 3
Render
The page is loaded in a headless browser so that content added by JavaScript can be seen.
What we doPut essential content and links in the initial HTML, or make sure scripts render reliably.
- 4
Index
Google analyses the content, groups duplicates, picks a canonical and decides whether to store the page.
What we doAlign canonicals, redirects and internal links so the version you want is the one chosen.
- 5
Serve
Indexed pages become eligible to be ranked and shown, with page experience and structured data taken into account.
What we doImprove Core Web Vitals and mark up pages so they qualify for enhanced results.
Process
What does a typical Technical SEO engagement look like?
Timings are typical and depend on site size and how quickly changes can be shipped. You will know the plan, and the reasoning behind it, before execution starts.
Read our full methodology- 1
Weeks 1 to 2
Crawl and data collection
We crawl the full site in raw and rendered modes, pull Search Console data and, where you can provide them, analyse server logs to see what search engine crawlers actually request.
- Complete crawl dataset
- Indexation and Core Web Vitals baseline
- 2
Weeks 2 to 4
Diagnosis
Issues are grouped by template and cause, then ranked by likely impact and engineering effort. Findings that would not change anything for search are left out on purpose.
- Technical SEO audit
- Issues ranked by impact and effort
- 3
Weeks 4 to 5
Tickets and planning
Each fix is written as a ticket with reproduction steps, the expected behaviour and acceptance criteria, and walked through with your developers so it fits their sprint planning.
- Developer-ready tickets
- Agreed release sequence
- 4
Month 2 onward
Release and verify
Fixes are checked on staging, then confirmed in production with a fresh crawl. Search engines need to recrawl affected pages before any change shows, which takes days on small sites and longer on large ones.
- Verified fixes per release
- Before and after comparison
- 5
Every month
Regression monitoring
Scheduled crawls and alerts catch the problems that new releases introduce, such as a stray noindex tag or a changed canonical, before they cost visibility.
- Monitoring alerts reviewed by a specialist
- Monthly technical health summary
Deliverables
What you receive.
- Technical SEO audit
- Prioritised developer tickets
- Site architecture recommendations
- Core Web Vitals report
- Structured data specification
- Migration plan where relevant
- Regression monitoring
Technology and tools
- Screaming Frog
- Google Search Console
- Server log analysis
- Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights
- Chrome DevTools
- Schema validators
Platforms we typically work across. Named for clarity, not as partnerships or endorsements.
Expected business outcomes
How is Technical SEO success measured?
- 01Indexed versus intended pages
- 02Core Web Vitals pass rate
- 03Crawl efficiency
- 04Organic visibility after fixes
Targets are set after the audit, against your own baseline. We do not promise figures before we have seen the data, and results vary by market and starting point.
Who does what
AI accelerates
- Classifying issues across large crawls
- Analysing log files
- Drafting ticket descriptions
Experts decide
- Deciding what actually affects rankings
- Working within engineering constraints
- Signing off migrations
Compare
A one-off technical audit, or ongoing technical SEO?
Both begin with the same investigation. The difference is what happens after the findings are delivered, and the right answer depends on how often your site changes and who will implement the fixes.
| One-off audit | Ongoing technical SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | Findings and tickets, once | Tickets, verification, monitoring |
| Implementation | Your developers, unsupervised | Supported and checked |
| Regressions | Not caught afterwards | Caught by scheduled crawls |
| Cost | Fixed, lower | Recurring |
| Suits | Stable sites with capable developers | Sites releasing code frequently |
| Main risk | Fixes never shipped | Paying for upkeep you do not need |
Our viewA small, stable site with a developer who will act on the tickets is well served by an audit and a follow-up check. A site that releases often, runs on a JavaScript framework or has a migration ahead benefits from someone watching continuously, because new problems arrive with new code.
See our full SEO servicesWho it is for
Is Technical SEO right for your business?
- Sites built on JavaScript frameworks
- Large and complex websites
- Businesses planning a migration
- Teams with unexplained traffic loss
Technical SEO by industry
Technical SEO by market
Questions
Technical SEO services: frequently asked questions.
Something we have not covered?
Talk to a Growth StrategistWhat does a technical SEO audit include?
A full crawl of the site, a review of Search Console indexing and performance data, rendering tests, Core Web Vitals analysis, checks on redirects, canonicals, sitemaps and structured data, and log analysis where logs are available. The result should be a ranked list of fixes with reasons, not an export of every warning a tool produced.
How much does technical SEO cost?
It depends on the size and complexity of the site, the number of templates, the technology it is built on and whether we advise or implement. A brochure site and a marketplace with millions of URLs are different jobs. We scope the work after a growth audit and explain what is included.
How long before technical fixes affect rankings?
The effect starts once the fix is live and search engines have recrawled the affected pages. On a small site that can be days to a few weeks. On a large one, recrawling takes longer and changes arrive gradually. Indexing fixes usually show sooner than gains that depend on improved page experience.
Is technical SEO worth it for a small website?
Usually as a one-off check, not a continuing service. Small sites on a well-maintained platform tend to have few technical problems, and those few are quick to fix. The cases that justify more are a recent rebuild, a planned migration or a drop in traffic nobody can explain.
Technical SEO vs on-page SEO: what is the difference?
Technical SEO is about whether search engines can reach, render and index your pages. On-page SEO is about what those pages say and how well they match what people search for. Technical work comes first in sequence, because content on a page that is not indexed cannot rank.
Is JavaScript bad for SEO?
No, but it adds risk. Google can render JavaScript, though rendering is an extra step that may be delayed, and content that depends on user interaction may never be seen. Many other crawlers, including some used by AI systems, render little or no JavaScript. Server-side rendering of important content avoids most of the problem.
Why does Search Console say 'Crawled, currently not indexed'?
It means Google fetched the page and chose not to store it. Common reasons are that the page is very similar to others, offers little unique content or sits in a section Google regards as low value. It is more often a quality or duplication signal than a technical fault.
Will a perfect score on an SEO audit tool improve our rankings?
Not by itself. Tool scores count issues without knowing which ones matter for your site, and many flagged items have no effect on search. A site can score highly and be poorly indexed. We prioritise by what blocks crawling, rendering and indexing, and ignore warnings that change nothing.
What access do you need to begin?
Google Search Console and analytics access, permission to crawl the site, and a contact in your development team. Server logs, a staging environment and read access to the code repository or CMS make the diagnosis sharper. Before a migration we also need the plan and timetable as early as possible.
Related services
What works best alongside Technical SEO?
- SEOTechnical, content and authority work prioritised by commercial value and measured against pipeline.
- Enterprise SEOGovernance, prioritisation and technical depth for large sites, multiple teams and long release cycles.
- Next.js DevelopmentFast, SEO-ready sites and applications with headless CMS and clean architecture.
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