What Is Technical SEO and Why Everything Else Depends on It

Technical SEO makes sure Google can find, read and index your website. If it cannot, even the best text will not appear in results. That is why technical SEO is the foundation for on-page SEO and content.

What technical SEO is

While on-page SEO deals with the content of each page, technical SEO deals with how the whole site works: how fast it is, whether it works well on mobile, whether Google sees all pages and whether links go where they should.

What technical SEO includes

• Indexing. Important pages in Google’s index, unimportant ones outside it.
• Sitemap. A list of pages that helps Google find them.
• robots.txt. A file that tells search engines what they may read.
• Speed. How fast the page loads, especially on mobile.
• Mobile display. Google looks at the mobile version of a page first.
• HTTPS. A secure connection, required today.
• Redirects. Old addresses permanently redirected (301) to new ones, without chains.
• Working links. No links to pages that do not exist (404 errors).
• Canonical URLs. One main version of a page when several similar addresses exist.
• Structured data. Schema describing the business, services and FAQs.

Common mistakes

• The same page available with and without www, or over http and https, without redirects.
• Old pages after a redesign that lead to a 404 error.
• Images of several megabytes that slow down mobile.
• A test version of the site accidentally left visible to Google.
• Important pages marked “noindex” after launch.

How to check your site

1. In Google Search Console open the page indexing report and look at why pages are not indexed.
2. In PageSpeed Insights enter your address and check the mobile score.
3. Check that yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml exists and has been submitted to Search Console.
4. Type your address with and without www and check both lead to the same page.

I do technical reviews and fixes in the website SEO service, and website maintenance keeps speed and security in check over time.