How to do technical SEO

Technical SEO is fundamentally about making your site crawlable, indexable, and fast enough for search engines to rank it effectively. Start by ensuring Google can actually discover and understand your pages. Use Google Search Console to check for crawl errors, which immediately tells you if robots are being blocked. Verify your robots.txt file isn't accidentally excluding important pages, and check that your XML sitemaps are properly formatted and submitted. Many sites still have noindex tags on pages they want ranked or redirect chains that waste crawl budget. Run a site audit tool like Screaming Frog or SEMrush to identify these issues systematically rather than manually checking each page.

Core Web Vitals are now ranking factors, so performance matters. Your largest contentful paint should ideally be under 2.5 seconds, your first input delay under 100 milliseconds, and cumulative layout shift under 0.1. Use Google's PageSpeed Insights to identify specific bottlenecks—usually image optimization, render-blocking JavaScript, or server response times. For most clients, compressing images, enabling GZIP compression, and leveraging browser caching delivers quick wins. If you're working with WordPress agencies, installing a caching plugin and CDN often solves 80 percent of speed issues without major development work.

Structure your site logically so link equity flows to important pages. Internal linking matters more than most agencies acknowledge—use descriptive anchor text to help Google understand what a page is about, and ensure your navigation doesn't bury key pages under too many clicks. Fix duplicate content issues by using canonical tags when appropriate, consolidating thin pages, or removing parameter variations. Address mobile usability comprehensively; responsive design alone isn't enough. Test actual mobile rendering and ensure clickable elements are finger-friendly.

Finally, implement schema markup for your content type—this helps search engines understand whether you're publishing articles, local business information, or product reviews. It's a straightforward technical implementation that often improves click-through rates from search results. These fundamentals address the majority of technical problems clients face. Most ranking improvements come from fixing crawlability, speed, and structure rather than chasing edge-case optimizations.