In today’s digital landscape, ranking on search engines requires more than just great content and keywords. Behind every high-performing website is a strong technical foundation—this is where technical SEO comes into play. Technical SEO focuses on optimizing the infrastructure of your site to ensure search engines can efficiently crawl, index, and understand your content. In this guide, we’ll break down what technical SEO is, why it’s essential, and how it supports your broader SEO strategy with practical tips and tools.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website’s infrastructure to help search engines like Google crawl, index, and understand your content more effectively. It focuses on the behind-the-scenes elements that impact your site’s visibility and performance in search results. Key areas of technical SEO include improving site speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, fixing crawl errors, creating XML sitemaps, setting up proper redirects, securing the site with HTTPS, and using structured data (schema markup).
Why Technical SEO is Important?
Let’s talk about why technical SEO is important at the core. Basically, if search engines can’t properly access, read, understand, or index your pages, then you won’t rank or even be found, for that matter. Technical SEO is important to avoid mistakes like removing yourself from Google’s index or diluting a page’s backlinks.
Technical SEO vs. on-page SEO vs. off-page SEO
Technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO are three core areas of search engine optimization, each focusing on different aspects of improving your website’s visibility in search results.
Technical SEO: Technical SEO deals with the backend structure of your site—things like site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, indexing, XML sitemaps, HTTPS, and structured data. It ensures that search engines can access, crawl, and understand your website efficiently.
On-page SEO: On-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual pages for keywords and user experience. This includes elements like meta tags, headings, content quality, keyword placement, internal linking, and image optimization.
Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside your website to boost its authority and reputation—primarily through backlinks from other websites but also via brand mentions, social signals, and influencer marketing. All three areas work together: technical SEO provides the foundation, on-page SEO makes your content search-friendly, and off-page SEO builds trust and authority in the eyes of search engines.
Understand Crawling and How to Optimize for It
A search engine like Google uses crawlers—also named spiders, robots, or simply bots—to follow links. When the crawler finds your site, it will start to read posts and pages on your site. The crawler will read the content of those posts and pages and will add the HTML version of these pages to a gigantic database called the index. This index is updated every time the crawler visits your website and finds a new or revised version of it.
Depending on how important Google deems your site and the number of changes you make on your website, the crawler comes around more or less often.
But what exactly is crawlability then? Well, crawlability means the possibilities Google has to crawl your website. These possibilities can be restricted in several ways by blocking the crawler from your website. If your website or a page on your website is blocked, you’re saying to Google’s crawler: “Do not come here.” Your site or the respective page won’t turn up in the search results in most of these cases.
There are a few things that could prevent Google from crawling or indexing your website.
The first method: You can use a .txt file (a text file) named robots.txt to block Google from crawling that page. Before a search engine spider crawls any page it hasn’t encountered before, it will open the robots.txt file for that site. The robots.txt file will tell the search engine which URLs on that site it’s allowed to visit. Using the robots.txt file, you can tell a spider where it cannot go on your site.
However, you’re not able to forbid a search engine from showing a URL in the search results. This means that not allowing a search engine to crawl a URL—called “blocking” it—does not mean that URL will not show up in the search results. If the search engine finds enough links to that URL, it will include it; it just won’t know what’s on that page.
The second method: You can use HTTP headers to prevent Google from crawling and indexing a page. This HTTP header contains a status code. This status code says that a page doesn’t exist, and Google won’t crawl that page. There are several codes with different meanings. If the status code is, for example, 200, the page exists and Google can crawl your page. If the status code is 307, that page has been redirected to another URL and Google won’t crawl the current URL.
The third method: You can use robots meta tags to block Google from indexing that page. Robots meta tags are short pieces of code that tell Google what it can and can’t do. There are several robot meta tag values. To prevent Google from adding that page to its index, you can use the noindex value. Google will crawl that page but won’t add it to its index. The opposite value of noindex is index, which can be used to tell Google it can add the page to its index. Another useful robots meta tag is the nofollow value. The nofollow value tells the crawler not to follow any links on this specific page at all. The opposite of the nofollow value is follow. You don’t have to manually set the index or follow values, as they are the default for any page the crawler will encounter.
How can you improve your Technical SEO?
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file is a simple text file located in the root directory of your website. You can usually access it by visiting:
yourdomain.com/robots.txtThis file contains a set of rules for search engine crawlers (like Googlebot), telling them where they can and cannot go on your site.
The file itself includes a set of rules for search engine crawlers and tells them where they can and cannot go on your site. It’s important to note that a website can have multiple robots files if you’re using subdomains. For example, if you have a blog on domain.com, then you’d have a robot.txt file for just the root domain.
But you might also have an e-commerce store that lives on store.domain.com. So you could have a separate robots file for your online store. That means that crawlers could be given two different sets of rules depending on the domain they’re trying to crawl.
Key Directives in Robots.txt
While there are several directives available, two are essential when it comes to indexing:
User-agent
This defines which crawler the rule applies to.
Example:
- Google’s crawler is called Googlebot
- User-agent: Googlebot targets only that crawler
Disallow
This tells the crawler which part of your site it should not crawl.
Example:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: / This tells Googlebot not to crawl any pages on your site—not ideal for SEO!
To apply the rule to all crawlers, use an asterisk * like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /This blocks every crawler from accessing your entire website, which might be useful in rare cases—like staging sites or private areas not meant for search engines.
Understanding Indexing:
Indexing is the process search engines use to store and organize your website’s content after it’s been crawled. Once a page is indexed, it can appear in search results when someone searches for a related topic. If your page isn’t indexed, it won’t show up in Google—even if the content is great. This can happen for several reasons, such as technical issues, blocked pages in the robots.txt file, or the accidental use of noindex tags.
For example, after a website redesign, it’s not uncommon for pages to remain unindexed if something in the setup prevents search engines from accessing or storing them. That’s why indexing is a critical part of SEO—you need to ensure your most important pages are not only crawlable but also indexed so they can drive traffic and visibility for your brand.
The noindex meta tag tells search engines not to include a page in their index. Most of the time, you don’t want this. However, it happens more often than you might think. For instance, let’s say you hire Design Inc. to create or redesign your website. During development, they might build it on a subdomain of their own site. In that case, it makes sense to use a noindex tag to keep the development version out of search engines. But what often happens is—once the design is approved and migrated to your domain—they forget to remove the noindex tag. As a result, your live pages either never get indexed or are removed from Google entirely.
That said, there are times when using noindex is appropriate. For example, we noindex our author archive pages because, from an SEO perspective, they provide little value. Still, they’re useful from a user experience standpoint—some visitors may want to read content from a specific author. Generally, small sites don’t need to worry much about noindex tags. Just be sure to check for them, especially after a redesign or migration.
Sitemap
Sitemaps are typically XML files that list the important URLs on your website—these can include pages, images, videos, and other types of content. They help search engines like Google crawl your site more efficiently and intelligently by highlighting which pages are important. Creating an XML sitemap manually can be complex if you’re not familiar with coding, and maintaining it by hand is nearly impossible.
Fortunately, if you’re using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math can automatically generate and update your sitemaps for you. To make it easier for search engines to discover your sitemap, you can reference it in your robots.txt file and also submit it directly through Google Search Console.
Redirect:
A redirect automatically sends both visitors and search engine bots from one URL to another. The main purpose is to consolidate signals and ensure a smooth user experience when content is moved or replaced. For example, imagine you had an older page at domain.com/best-golf-balls-2018 and a newer, updated version at domain.com/best-golf-balls. Since these pages are closely related, it would make sense to redirect the outdated version to the current one. This not only helps users find the most relevant content, but also tells search engines to transfer SEO value—such as backlinks, authority, and ranking signals—from the old URL to the new one.
There are different types of redirects, but the most commonly used for SEO purposes is the 301 redirect, which indicates a permanent move. This helps preserve your site’s search performance and prevents issues like duplicate content or broken links. Properly implementing redirects is an important part of maintaining site structure and protecting the value of your existing pages during updates or migrations.
Canonical Tags:
A canonical tag is a snippet of HTML code used to tell search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page. This helps resolve duplicate content issues by consolidating ranking signals.
For example, let’s say your website is accessible at both http://yourdomain.com and https://yourdomain.com, and for some reason, you weren’t able to implement a redirect. These URLs would be seen as exact duplicates. By setting a canonical tag, you’re signaling to search engines which version of the page should be prioritized. As a result, important SEO signals—like backlinks—are passed to the canonical URL rather than being split between two versions.
However, it’s important to understand that Google may choose to ignore your canonical tag. Going back to the previous example, if we set the canonical tag to the insecure HTTP page, Google would probably choose the secure HTTPS version instead. Now, if you’re running a simple WordPress site, you shouldn’t have to worry about this too much. CMS’s are pretty good out of the box and will handle a lot of these basic technical issues for you.
Site Structure:
A good site structure helps both your visitors and search engines like Google navigate your website more effectively. In this video, I’m going to explain why site structure is important for SEO and walk you through the basics of setting it up properly.
Structuring your website is essential for both usability and findability. Many websites lack a clear structure, making it difficult for visitors to find the products or content they’re looking for. You need to guide users toward the pages you want them to see. A clear site structure not only improves the user experience but also helps Google better understand your content, making it a crucial part of your SEO strategy.
To do this, you should categorize your posts and products so they’re easy to find. New visitors should instantly understand what your site is about—whether you’re sharing blog content or selling products. For example, on our website, we display our most important products just below the main navigation menu, followed by our latest blog posts. This setup helps users navigate easily while signaling to Google which sections are most important.
Additionally, site structure plays a major role in how Google interprets and indexes your content. The way your site is organized gives search engines vital clues about your most valuable pages. This impacts how quickly Google can crawl, understand, and rank your content. We highlight the product pages, service pages, key blog posts, and main support resources, helping Google recognize that our plugins and courses are a top priority.
The better Google understands your site’s purpose and priorities, the more likely it is to rank your pages higher. A well-planned structure can also prevent internal competition. For example, if you publish multiple blog posts about SEO—each covering a different aspect of the topic—Google may struggle to determine which one to rank. This can dilute your SEO efforts by making your own content compete against itself. To solve this, we created an “Ultimate Guide to Site Structure” and linked to it from all related posts, clearly signaling to Google that it’s our authoritative resource on the topic.
Site structure also needs to adapt as your content evolves. You don’t want outdated products or deleted posts to remain accessible or indexed. That’s why managing categories and tags in platforms like WordPress is important. If you haven’t already organized your blog posts or product pages into categories, start now. Make sure these categories are also included in your main menu. Ideally, each category should contain a balanced amount of content.
Adding tags further improves structure. Tags are similar to categories but differ in that categories are hierarchical (you can have subcategories), whereas tags are flat and non-hierarchical.
Lastly, internal linking is a key element of a strong site structure. Your most important content—often referred to as cornerstone content—should link to related articles, and those articles should link back. This creates a network of connected content that helps users explore deeper and helps search engines understand content relationships on your site.
Schema Markup:
Schema Markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags that you can add to the HTML code of a page. They help search engine crawlers read specific parts of your website and represent them the way you want in the search results.
Why are schemas so important well, firstly structured data like schema markup can help google understand who you are and what your page is all about for example again this page has the relevant structured data so it’s essentially saying to google hey we are a website that’s all about food and recipes and this page has a complete recipe for making an apple pie so if anyone searches with queries like how to make an apple pie or apple pie recipe then this page will be pretty useful for you and that can potentially help you rank better for relevant search queries
Secondly schema markup can help you stand out on google serps not only do they look better from an aesthetic point of view but they deliver useful information to searchers you can entice users to click on your page and drive traffic to your site and a high click-through rate sends positive signals to google helping it understand that your content is in demand so the next time your page may rank even higher for those search queries.
Different types of schema markups:
There are many types of schema, each serving a different purpose, depending on the content you’re marking up. Below is a list of the most essential types of Schema used in SEO:
🔹 1. Organization Schema
Describes details about a business or organization.
- Includes name, logo, contact info, social profiles, etc.
- Helps Google display Knowledge Panels.
- Useful for brand recognition.
🔹 2. Person Schema
Used to highlight information about a person.
- Includes name, job title, photo, education, social links, etc.
- Commonly used on author pages or team profiles.
🔹 3. Local Business Schema
Optimized for physical businesses with a local presence.
- Includes address, phone number, hours, location, etc.
- Helps boost visibility in local search and Google Maps.
🔹 4. Product Schema
Describe the products you’re selling.
- Includes product name, description, image, price, availability, reviews.
- Triggers rich results like review stars, pricing, and availability in Google Search.
🔹 5. Article Schema
Used for blog posts or news articles.
- Includes title, author, date published, featured image, etc.
- Helps with Google News and may appear in Top Stories carousel.
🔹 6. Breadcrumb Schema
Shows the path of a page within the site hierarchy.
- Improves click-through rates by showing clean navigation paths in search results.
🔹 7. FAQ Schema
Marks up question-and-answer sections.
- Allows Google to display your FAQs directly in search results.
- Great for visibility and occupying more space on the SERP.
🔹 8. How-To Schema
For step-by-step instructional content.
- Shows numbered steps, images, and tools required directly in Google results.
- Useful for DIY content, tutorials, and guides.
🔹 9. Event Schema
Used to describe upcoming events.
- Includes event name, date, location, performer, ticket details.
- Can show up in Google’s event-rich results.
🔹 10. Review & Rating Schema
Allows you to display ratings and reviews in search results.
- Can be used for products, services, recipes, and more.
- Shows star ratings and improves click-through rate.
🔹 11. Recipe Schema
Specifically for food recipes.
- Includes ingredients, prep time, cook time, calories, ratings, and images.
- Ideal for food bloggers and recipe websites.
🔹 12. Video Schema
Used to describe video content.
- Helps videos appear in Google Video results and enables rich features like previews.
🔹 13. Course Schema
Used to describe online or in-person courses.
- Include the course name, description, provider, etc.
- Useful for educational websites and platforms.
🔹 14. Job Posting Schema
Marks up job opportunities.
- Include job title, location, salary, and qualifications.
- Helps your job listings appear in Google for Jobs.
🔹 15. Software Application Schema
Describes software apps.
- Includes app name, operating system, price, rating.
- Useful for developers or tech product sites.
URL Structure:
URL structure refers to the way your website’s URLs are organized and formatted. A well-structured URL is clean, descriptive, and easy for both users and search engines to understand.
Here’s an example of a well-structured URL:
“ https://example.com/blog/seo-tips-for-beginners”
It’s:
- Easy to read
- Includes relevant keywords
- Reflects the page content
Why URL Structure Matters for SEO
A clean URL structure:
- Improves user experience — visitors know what to expect when they click
- Helps search engines understand the page content
- Can improve click-through rates in search results
- Makes it easier to organize content logically (e.g., by categories or topics)
Javascript:
JavaScript is a programming language used to make websites interactive and dynamic. It powers things like sliders, pop-ups, form validation, and content that loads without refreshing the page. While JavaScript can improve user experience, it can sometimes create issues for SEO if not implemented correctly. That’s because search engine crawlers, like Googlebot, may have trouble accessing or understanding content that’s loaded using JavaScript—especially if it’s rendered client-side (in the browser) instead of server-side. If key content or links are only available through JavaScript, there’s a chance they won’t be indexed properly, which can negatively impact your rankings.
To avoid this, it’s important to ensure that critical content is accessible in the HTML, use server-side rendering (SSR) where possible, and test your site with tools like Google’s URL Inspection tool or the Mobile-Friendly Test to see how Googlebot views your pages.
Thin and Duplicate Content:
Thin content refers to web pages that offer little or no value to users. These pages often contain minimal text, lack depth, or exist solely for SEO purposes without delivering helpful or original information. Examples include empty category pages, shallow product descriptions, auto-generated pages, or doorway pages created just to manipulate search rankings. Search engines like Google may penalize sites with too much thin content, as it creates a poor user experience.
On the other hand, duplicate content occurs when the same or very similar content appears on more than one page—either within your own site or across multiple domains. This can include identical product descriptions, multiple URLs pointing to the same blog post, or content copied from other websites.
Duplicate content confuses search engines, making it difficult to determine which version should rank in search results. To maintain strong SEO, it’s important to expand thin pages with original, high-value content, consolidate similar pages where appropriate, and use canonical tags or 301 redirects to manage duplicates. Creating unique, well-structured content ensures your pages are both user-friendly and search-engine-friendly.
Hreflang Tag:
The hreflang tag is an HTML attribute used to tell search engines what language and regional version of a page to display to users based on their location and language preferences. It’s especially useful for websites that have content in multiple languages or target different countries with slightly varied versions of the same page.
For example, if you have an English version of your site for the U.S. and another for the U.K., hreflang tags help Google understand which version to show to each audience. This improves user experience by serving the most relevant content and prevents duplicate content issues between similar pages in different languages or regions.
The hreflang tag is added to the page’s <head> section or submitted via the sitemap, and it uses a format like hreflang=”en-us” for English (United States) or hreflang=”fr-fr” for French (France). Proper use of hreflang can boost international SEO performance by ensuring the right users see the right content.
404 Error:
A 404 error is a message that appears when a user tries to visit a web page that doesn’t exist. It’s also called a “Page Not Found” error. This usually happens when a page has been deleted, moved without a proper redirect, or if someone types in the wrong URL.
From a user’s point of view, 404 errors can be frustrating because they lead to a dead end. From an SEO perspective, too many 404 errors can hurt your website’s performance by disrupting user experience and wasting crawl budget (the time and resources search engines spend crawling your site). While having a few 404s is normal, it’s important to monitor and fix broken links regularly.
A good practice is to create a helpful and branded 404 page that guides users back to your main content, and when possible, use 301 redirects to point old URLs to relevant new pages. This helps keep both users and search engines happy.
Core Web Vitals: A Quick Overview
Before diving into usability and speed, it’s important to understand Core Web Vitals—a set of performance metrics introduced by Google to measure real-world user experience. These include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) for loading speed, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) for interactivity, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for visual stability. Core Web Vitals play a crucial role in how your website is ranked, as they reflect how smooth and user-friendly your site feels in practice. While we won’t go deep here, we’ve covered these metrics in detail in another blog—read more about Core Web Vitals here.
Usability and Site Speed:
Usability refers to how effectively, efficiently, and easily users can interact with your website. It involves everything from clear navigation and intuitive design to readable fonts, mobile responsiveness, and accessible content.
A site with good usability helps visitors find what they need without confusion or frustration, encouraging them to stay longer and engage with your content or products. Elements like logical menu structure, consistent page layouts, and well-placed calls to action all contribute to a positive user experience.
On the other hand, site speed is the measure of how quickly your website loads and responds to user actions. Slow-loading websites can be a major barrier to usability, as most users expect pages to load within a few seconds. If your site takes too much time to load, visitors are likely to leave before even seeing your content. From an SEO perspective, both usability and site speed are critical.
Google uses these factors to determine how user-friendly your site is, and poor performance in either area can hurt your rankings. Improving site speed through optimized images, clean code, and reliable hosting, along with designing for usability, ensures that both users and search engines have a smooth and satisfying experience on your site.
Best Technical SEO tools
Google Search Console: Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. It shows which pages are indexed, what keywords drive traffic to your site, and how your pages are performing in terms of impressions and clicks.
One of its most useful features is alerting you to technical issues, such as mobile usability problems, indexing errors, or security issues like malware. You can also submit sitemaps and individual URLs for indexing, which is especially helpful when you publish or update content.
Screaming Frog: Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop-based crawler that mimics how search engines like Google crawl your website. It scans your site’s pages and helps you identify technical SEO issues like broken links (404 errors), duplicate content, missing or duplicate meta tags, redirect chains, improper use of canonical tags, and more. It also allows you to analyze your site’s internal linking structure and heading hierarchy. This tool is particularly useful for SEO audits, especially for large websites with many pages.
Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a powerful all-in-one SEO platform known for its in-depth backlink analysis, keyword research tools, and technical SEO audits. Its Site Audit feature crawls your site and highlights issues like slow-loading pages, broken internal links, crawl depth problems, and missing meta data.
Ahrefs also tracks your keyword rankings over time and lets you spy on competitors to uncover content gaps, backlink opportunities, and keyword strategies. It’s a comprehensive tool ideal for both technical SEO and broader strategic planning.
PageSpeed Insights: PageSpeed Insights is a free tool from Google that analyzes the loading speed of your web pages on both mobile and desktop. It provides a performance score from 0 to 100, along with detailed suggestions for improving page speed. These suggestions might include optimizing images, enabling compression, reducing JavaScript execution time, and improving server response times. Since page speed is a ranking factor and a key part of user experience, using this tool to optimize your site can significantly boost SEO and reduce bounce rates.
GTmetrix: GTmetrix is another highly useful tool for analyzing website speed and performance. It provides detailed reports on how fast your pages load and highlights specific elements that may be slowing them down.
GTmetrix uses metrics from Lighthouse and Web Vitals to assess areas like time to first byte, largest contentful paint, and total blocking time. It also offers waterfall charts to visualize how each part of your page loads. GTmetrix is particularly helpful for web developers and SEOs looking to optimize user experience and meet technical performance standards.
SEMrush: SEMrush is a comprehensive digital marketing toolkit widely used for SEO, PPC, content marketing, and competitive research. Its Site Audit feature identifies over 140 technical and SEO issues, including broken links, crawl errors, duplicate content, and HTTPS problems.
SEMrush also provides tools for tracking keyword rankings, auditing backlinks, and conducting detailed competitor analysis. With its user-friendly dashboards and powerful reporting features, SEMrush is a go-to solution for marketers looking to monitor and enhance all aspects of their website’s SEO performance.
