When people think about SEO, keywords, content and backlinks are often the first things that come to mind. But there’s another important part of search engine optimisation happening behind the scenes: technical SEO.
You could have well-written content and a great-looking website, but technical problems can make it more difficult for search engines to find, understand and rank your pages. They can also create a frustrating experience for the people visiting your site.
So, what is technical SEO, what does it involve and why should businesses pay attention to it?
What Is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the process of improving the technical elements of a website to help search engines crawl, understand and index its pages effectively.
Search engines such as Google use automated programs known as crawlers to discover content across the web. Once a page has been found, Google needs to understand what it contains and decide whether it should be added to its index, making it eligible to appear in search results.
Technical SEO helps make this process as straightforward as possible.
It covers everything from your website's structure and loading speed to mobile usability, redirects, internal linking and crawlability. While many technical SEO improvements aren't immediately visible to users, they can have a significant impact on how a website performs in organic search.
Why Is Technical SEO Important?
A strong technical foundation gives the rest of your SEO strategy a better chance of succeeding.
If search engines struggle to crawl or index important pages, the quality of the content on those pages may not matter. Similarly, slow loading times, broken links or poor mobile usability can affect the experience visitors have once they arrive.
Technical SEO is therefore about making your website accessible and understandable to search engines while creating a smooth experience for users.
It can help to:
- Make it easier for search engines to discover and index important pages
- Improve website speed and performance
- Provide a better experience across mobile and desktop devices
- Identify and resolve broken pages and links
- Prevent duplicate or competing pages from causing issues
- Improve the overall structure and navigation of your website
- Support stronger organic search visibility
Technical SEO isn't a one-off job, either. Websites change over time as new pages are added, old content is removed and platforms are updated. Regular technical checks can help catch issues before they begin affecting search performance.
What Does Technical SEO Include?
Technical SEO covers a broad range of website elements. Some of the most important areas include:
Website Crawling and Indexing
Before a page can rank in Google, search engines generally need to be able to find and index it.
Technical SEO involves checking that important pages are accessible to search engine crawlers and that nothing is unintentionally preventing them from being indexed.
This can include reviewing your robots.txt file, XML sitemap, canonical tags and indexing directives. These elements help search engines understand which pages they should access and which versions of your content should appear in search results.
Website Speed
Nobody enjoys waiting for a slow website to load.
Page speed can affect both usability and SEO performance, particularly on mobile devices. Large images, unnecessary scripts, poorly configured hosting and inefficient website code are just some of the factors that can slow a site down.
Technical SEO can help identify these problems and highlight opportunities to make pages faster and more responsive.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics Google uses to assess aspects of a page's real-world user experience.
They focus on loading performance, responsiveness and visual stability. In simple terms, they consider questions such as: How quickly does the main content appear? How responsive is the page when someone interacts with it? Do elements suddenly move around while the page is loading?
Improving these areas can contribute to a smoother website experience while supporting your wider SEO efforts.
Mobile-Friendliness
With so many searches taking place on smartphones, websites need to work properly on smaller screens.
Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, making mobile optimisation an important consideration for SEO.
A technically sound website should be responsive, easy to navigate and straightforward to use regardless of the device someone chooses.
Website Structure and Internal Linking
A clear website structure helps visitors find what they're looking for and allows search engines to understand how different pages relate to one another.
Important pages shouldn't be buried deep within your website or left without any internal links pointing towards them. Logical navigation and relevant internal linking can help search engines discover pages while distributing authority throughout the site.
A well-organised structure can also make it easier to establish which pages are most important to your business.
Broken Links and Redirects
Websites naturally evolve. Services change, products disappear and old pages are sometimes removed.
However, deleting or moving pages without considering what happens to the old URL can lead to broken links and 404 errors.
Redirects can be used to send users and search engines from an outdated URL to an appropriate alternative. Technical SEO involves reviewing these redirects, fixing broken links and avoiding unnecessary redirect chains that could make a website harder to navigate.
Duplicate Content and Canonicalisation
Sometimes, multiple URLs can contain identical or very similar content. This can happen for several reasons, including URL parameters, eCommerce filters or different versions of the same page.
Canonical tags can help indicate the preferred version of a page to search engines. Managing these correctly can reduce confusion and help ensure the right URL is prioritised in search results.
HTTPS and Website Security
Website security is another fundamental part of maintaining a trustworthy site.
HTTPS encrypts information transferred between a user's browser and your website. Most modern websites should already be using HTTPS, but technical audits can identify issues such as insecure resources, incorrect redirects or pages that are still accessible through an HTTP version.
What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
A technical SEO audit is essentially a health check for your website.
Rather than looking solely at keywords or written content, an audit examines the technical factors that could be helping or hindering your organic search performance.
This may involve crawling the website to uncover broken links, redirect problems, duplicate pages, missing metadata, indexing issues, slow-loading pages and other technical errors.
The findings can then be prioritised based on their potential impact. Not every warning generated by an SEO tool needs immediate attention, so understanding which issues actually matter is an important part of the process.
Does Every Website Need Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is relevant to virtually every website, although the amount of work required will vary.
A small brochure website is unlikely to face the same challenges as an eCommerce store with tens of thousands of product and category pages. Larger websites tend to have more complex crawling, indexing and site architecture considerations, but even relatively small sites can develop technical problems.
Technical SEO is particularly worth considering when launching a new website, completing a website migration or redesign, experiencing an unexplained drop in organic traffic, or making significant changes to your site's structure.
Ultimately, technical SEO works alongside content, on-page optimisation and off-page SEO. It isn't a replacement for any of these areas. Instead, it provides the foundation they need to perform effectively.
Build a Stronger Foundation for Your SEO Strategy
Technical issues can easily go unnoticed, but they could be holding back your website's performance. At BAW Creative, our thorough approach to SEO combines technical expertise with content optimisation and wider digital strategy to help businesses improve their online visibility.
If you'd like to understand how your website is performing and uncover opportunities for improvement, get in touch with the BAW Creative team to discuss how our SEO services can help.
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