Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work of making sure search engines and AI crawlers can find, render, understand and index a website's pages efficiently, covering crawling, indexing, rendering, speed, structured data and site architecture.
What it covers
- Crawling: can bots reach the pages, through links and sitemaps?
- Rendering: is the content in the HTML, or only after JavaScript runs?
- Indexing: which pages does Google choose to keep, and why are others excluded?
- Speed: do pages meet Core Web Vitals thresholds, such as a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less (web.dev: Web Vitals)?
- Structured data: is schema markup valid and eligible for rich results (Google: structured data intro)?
- Architecture: internal links, duplicates, redirects and orphan pages
Why it matters
Content cannot rank if it cannot be indexed, and slow pages lose customers. The Economic Times cut its Largest Contentful Paint from 4.5 to 2.5 seconds and saw bounce rate fall 43% (web.dev, The Economic Times case study). See our SEO audit and ten common technical issues.
FAQ
Do small sites need technical SEO?
Yes, though usually less of it. Indexing, speed and mobile usability matter for every site.
Who should do technical SEO?
An SEO specialist to diagnose and a developer to implement, working together.
Published Sep 24, 2026 · Last updated Sep 24, 2026