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Home / Digital marketing / Technical SEO
Technical SEO that gives the rest of your marketing a fair shot
Rankings stall when a site is slow, hard to crawl, or can't track what happens after a click. We fix speed, indexing, structure, and tracking, and we rebuild sites when patching isn't worth it. Available in the full agency stack or as a quoted project.
What's included
What technical SEO covers
Core Web Vitals and speed
Image compression, caching, script cleanup, and hosting checks until the site passes Google's speed and stability thresholds on mobile.
Crawling and indexing
Sitemaps, robots rules, canonicals, and redirect chains cleaned up so Google indexes the pages you want and skips the ones you don't.
Schema markup
Business, service, FAQ, and review schema that helps search engines and AI tools understand who you are and what you offer.
Structure and internal links
Clear service and location hierarchies, breadcrumbs, and internal links that pass authority to the pages that bring in revenue.
Call and form tracking
Phone, form, and booking tracking in analytics, so you can see which pages and keywords produce leads.
Rebuilds and migrations
When a site is beyond repair, we rebuild on WordPress with full URL and redirect mapping, which is what protects the rankings the old site earned. See website build.
You get: a fast site that passes Core Web Vitals, clean indexing, and lead tracking you can trust.
Who technical SEO is for
It is a good fit if you
- Launched a new site or redesign and saw traffic drop afterward
- Have pages that never show up in Google
- Have a site that loads slowly on a phone
- Changed domains, platforms, or business names
- Don't know how many calls and forms the site produces
You may not need it if
- The site is small, fast, fully indexed, and tracked. A one-time audit will confirm that.
The audit
What a technical audit checks
Four questions, in the order Google asks them. Pick one to see what we look at.
If Google's crawler can't reach a page, nothing else on that page counts.
Broken links and redirects404s, redirect chains, and loops found and fixed.
Robots and sitemapsNothing important blocked, and a sitemap that matches the site.
Site structureEvery service and location page reachable within a few clicks.
| Area | What we check | What passing looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Loading speed | Largest Contentful Paint | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Responsiveness | Interaction to Next Paint | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Layout stability | Cumulative Layout Shift | 0.1 or less |
| Indexing | Pages Google has indexed vs. pages you want indexed | Every service and location page indexed |
| Redirects | Old URLs after a move or redesign | Each old URL points to its closest new page |
| Canonicals | Duplicate versions of a page | One preferred URL per page |
| Schema | Business, service, and location markup | Valid, and matching the Google Business Profile |
| Tracking | Calls and forms recorded by source | Every lead tied to a page and a channel |
The three speed thresholds are Google's published Core Web Vitals targets.
How it works
Audit, fix by impact, monitor
Step 1
Crawl and audit
We crawl the whole site, review Search Console, and test speed on real mobile connections.
Step 2
Fix by impact
Issues get ranked by how much traffic or revenue they affect, and the biggest ones get fixed first.
Step 3
Monitor monthly
Recurring crawls catch broken links, indexing drops, and slowdowns before they cost you rankings.
Technical SEO explained
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the work that lets search engines and AI crawlers reach, read, and index a website. Content and links can't help a page that Google can't crawl or that loads too slowly to use.
What a technical audit checks
Crawlability: robots.txt, XML sitemaps, and internal links. Indexing: canonical tags, redirects, duplicate pages, and noindex rules. Page experience: Core Web Vitals, which measure loading speed, responsiveness, and layout stability, plus mobile usability and HTTPS. Structured data: schema markup that tells search engines what a page is about.
What technical SEO work involves
A full crawl of the site and a prioritized fix list. After that, ongoing maintenance: redirect and broken-link fixes, speed work, plugin and platform updates, schema for the business, its services, and its locations, and a correct title and meta description on every page.
Why it matters for local businesses
Most local sites are small, so the problems are few but costly: a location page set to noindex, a slow mobile page, a redesign that dropped its redirects. Call and form tracking belong here too, because rankings only matter if the leads are counted. Technical work supports SEO content and design and CRO.
The problems we find most often on local sites
- A page set to noindex. Often left over from development. The page exists and Google is told to skip it.
- Missing redirects after a redesign. Old URLs that ranked now return errors, and their links are lost.
- Oversized images. A hero photo straight from a camera can add seconds to a mobile load.
- Two plugins writing conflicting schema. Google receives two versions of your address or hours.
- A phone number that isn't a link. Mobile visitors can't tap to call.
- No call tracking. The site may be working and no one can prove it.
Most of these take under an hour to fix once found.
What a redesign or migration needs
Before launch: a map from every old URL to its new one, a crawl of the staging site, and tracking tested. After launch: a crawl of the live site, a check of indexed pages in Search Console, and monitoring for four weeks.
Skipping the URL map is the most common reason a new site ranks worse than the old one. Our website build service includes every step above.
Free technical SEO guides and tools
- LocalBusiness schema starter pack: A JSON-LD template, types for eight trades, a field guide, and a testing checklist.
- See all tools and resources
Technical SEO FAQ
Common questions about technical SEO
How do I know if my site has technical problems?
Common signs are pages missing from Google, slow mobile load times, rankings that drop after a site change, or traffic you can't tie to calls. A crawl and a Search Console review usually show the cause quickly.
Do you need access to our website?
Yes. We work in your WordPress dashboard or alongside your developer. You keep ownership of the site and every account.
Should we rebuild or fix what we have?
Fix first when the platform is sound. Rebuild when the theme or builder slows everything down or makes basic edits hard. We'll show you which one the numbers support.
Will a redesign hurt our rankings?
It can if URLs change without redirects. Every rebuild we run includes URL mapping, redirect testing, and a post-launch crawl.
How long does a technical audit take?
For a typical local business site, about a week from access to a prioritized fix list.
What platforms do you work on?
WordPress most often. We also audit sites on Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, and Shopify, where some fixes are limited by the platform.
Does site speed affect rankings?
It is one factor among many. Its larger effect is on leads: slow mobile pages lose visitors before they see the phone number.
What is schema markup, and do I need it?
Schema is code that states your business details in a format search engines read without guessing. Local businesses should have it on the homepage and each location page. See what is local schema markup.
Is technical SEO a one-time job?
The audit and main fixes are one-time. Sites drift as plugins update and pages are added, so a monthly check catches new problems early.
Do you make the fixes or hand us a list?
Either. With site access we make the changes. If you have a developer, we provide the list in priority order and verify the work.
Pairs with SEO content and design and CRO. The Local SEO program does not include technical work, but map rankings hold better on a technically sound site. For a full rebuild, see website build. For every search service run together, see SEO services.