ServicesTechnical SEO

Technical SEO

Technical SEO fixes the problems that stop Google finding, rendering and indexing the pages that bring in work: crawl waste, indexation gaps, slow mobile pages, broken redirects, missing structured data and content hidden behind JavaScript. We write the developer tickets and check the fixes after release.

Written for developers, explained for owners.

TECHNICAL SEO
Crawl and index check

Compare what exists with what Google keeps.

Prioritised tickets

Each fix scoped with URLs and test steps.

Release validation

Confirm it works live, not just on staging.

What we can help with

Technical areas we work on

The scope follows the problems the site actually has. A small WordPress site and a headless build need different checks.

  • Crawling, robots.txt and XML sitemaps
  • Indexation and canonical issues
  • Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP and CLS
  • Redirects, status codes and migrations
  • Structured data for local businesses and services
  • JavaScript rendering and internal links

Technical SEO in practice

Indexation is where most problems show up

The page indexing report in Search Console is the starting point. It lists pages Google found but chose not to index, pages excluded by a noindex tag, duplicates where Google picked a different canonical, and soft 404s. Common causes on service business sites include staging copies left open to crawlers, tag and author archives soaking up crawl attention, filter parameters creating thousands of near-duplicates, and the suburb pages the owner cares about sitting under ‘Crawled, currently not indexed’. We compare a full crawl with that report to find which templates cause the trouble, then fix at template level rather than page by page.

If you need the wider picture first, a full SEO audit covers technical issues alongside content and links.

Planning and implementation

Speed, redirects, schema and rendering

Core Web Vitals measure loading (Largest Contentful Paint), responsiveness (Interaction to Next Paint, which replaced First Input Delay in 2024) and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift), using data from real Chrome users. On trade sites the usual culprits are oversized hero images, page builders loading scripts on every page, chat widgets and an overloaded tag manager. Redirects matter most when URLs change: every old URL that earned links or rankings needs a single 301 hop to its closest new equivalent, not a chain and not a blanket redirect to the homepage. Structured data such as LocalBusiness and Service markup should match what’s visible on the page. If the site relies on client-side JavaScript to render content or links, we check what Googlebot and other crawlers actually receive, because many AI crawlers don’t run JavaScript at all.

Platform moves carry the most technical risk, so website migration projects get their own redirect and validation plan. On WordPress, plugin and theme choices drive many of the issues covered under WordPress SEO. Once the site is technically clean, SEO copywriting is usually where the next gains come from.

How we work

From diagnosis to verified fix

01

Diagnose with real data

Search Console, Chrome field data, a JavaScript-rendered crawl and server logs where available, cross-checked against your priority pages.

02

Write developer tickets

Each ticket lists affected URLs or templates, the expected behaviour, the fix and how to test it, ordered by impact.

03

Validate after release

We recrawl, inspect live URLs and watch indexation and field data in the following weeks, because caches and plugins can undo a correct fix.

Measurement and review

Signs the technical work is landing

The first measures are technical: the share of priority pages indexed, crawl errors resolved, redirects returning a clean 301, and Core Web Vitals passing on mobile in field data rather than a Lighthouse test run once on a fast laptop.

Then the commercial check: impressions, clicks and enquiries for the service pages that were previously excluded or slow. Track them as a page group, so a template fix that touched two hundred suburb pages shows up as one clear trend.

Good questions

Technical SEO questions

A few useful answers before we talk.

Is SEO Tech the same as Technical SEO?

Yes. Some people search for SEO tech, technical search optimisation or site health; it's the same work. It covers how search engines crawl, render and index the site, separate from the words on the page or the links pointing at it. We keep it on one page because the diagnosis, the developer tickets and the validation belong together, whatever the service is called on someone's quote.

Our PageSpeed score is low. Is that hurting rankings?

Not necessarily on its own. The PageSpeed Insights score is a lab test on one simulated device. Google uses Core Web Vitals from real Chrome users as a ranking signal, and it's one of many. A site can score poorly in the lab and pass in the field, or the reverse. We look at field data for your key templates first. Slow mobile pages still lose enquiries from impatient visitors, so speed work can pay off even where rankings don't move.

Do we need schema markup?

For a service business, LocalBusiness markup with your name, address or service area, phone and hours is worth having, and Service markup can describe what you offer. It helps search engines and AI tools read the page; it is not a ranking boost by itself, and it must match visible content. Google now shows FAQ rich results only for a small set of authoritative government and health sites, so adding FAQ schema to win extra space in results no longer works.

Can a site be technically sound and still not rank?

Yes. Technical SEO removes barriers; it doesn't give Google a reason to prefer you. If the pages are thin, the business has few reviews or links, or competitors answer the search better, clean code won't change that. Our recommendations say so when content or authority is the bigger constraint, so you don't spend developer time on fixes that can't move the result.

Where should we start if we don't know what's wrong?

Start with the free marketing audit. We check indexation, mobile performance and obvious crawl problems on your main service pages, then give you a ranked checklist. If the findings point to deeper technical problems, we can scope a full technical review with your developer involved from the start.

A useful starting point

What the free audit checks on the technical side

For technical SEO, the free audit looks at indexation and mobile speed on the pages that matter most to your enquiries.

  • Which priority pages Google has indexed and which it's ignoring.
  • Speed and stability problems on mobile, using field data where it exists.
  • Technical fixes in priority order, with a note on which need a developer.

Get a 100% free audit with an actionable checklist.

Send us your site, plus Search Console access if you have it, and we’ll show you what Google can’t see.