The work that happens under the floorboards.
Speed, crawlability, indexing and structured data. It is the least visible SEO work and usually the one costing you the most, because nothing else you do matters if Google cannot read the page.
You cannot rank a page Google cannot read.
Content and links get all the attention. But they sit on top of a foundation, and when the foundation is broken the work above it does nothing.
of all published pages get zero traffic from Google. Most of them are not bad pages. They are pages nothing points at, or pages Google never properly crawled.
Ahrefs study of roughly 14 billion pages, 2023Google's published threshold for Largest Contentful Paint. Above four seconds is classed as poor. Most local business sites fail this on mobile, almost always because of images.
Google, web.dev/articles/vitalsof search result pages now show an AI answer panel. Those panels are assembled from structured, machine-readable content — which is a technical SEO output.
GrowthSRC analysis of 200,000+ keywords, 2026The audit, in plain language.
- Crawlability. Can search engines reach every page that matters? Blocked resources, broken links, and orphan pages nothing links to.
- Indexing. Are the right pages in the index and the wrong ones out? Duplicate URLs, thin pages and accidental noindex tags.
- Core Web Vitals. Load, responsiveness and visual stability, measured on mobile, because that is where local search happens.
- Site architecture. How deep pages sit and how they link to each other. Important pages should be within three clicks of home.
- Structured data. Schema on every page, valid, and matching what is visible — markup that contradicts the page does more harm than none.
- URL structure. Readable, lowercase, extensionless, consistent. Changing these later is the expensive mistake.
- Redirects. Old URLs pointing where they should, no chains, no loops. This is where most rebuilds quietly lose rankings.
- Mobile behavior. Not just responsive. Tap targets, viewport, and whether anything overflows on a real phone.
- AI crawler access. Explicit permissions for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and the rest, plus an llms.txt reference file.
- Image weight. The single most common cause of a slow local site, and the easiest thing on this list to fix.
Want to run the basics yourself first? The free 20-point audit covers what you can check without any tools, and you keep the results whether you call us or not.
Technical SEO is not magic, and it is not infinite.
There is a version of this service that never ends — a quarterly audit producing a hundred-item spreadsheet, most of which does not matter, delivered forever. We are not interested in selling that.
On most local business sites, the technical problems that actually cost you money number about five. Images are too heavy. A few pages are not indexed. There is no structured data. The architecture buries important pages. Something is blocking a crawler. Fix those five and the foundation is sound for years.
After that, the return shifts to content and to being findable in AI answers, and we will tell you when you have crossed that line rather than keep billing for diminishing audits.
The exception is a big site or an ecommerce catalog, where technical debt genuinely accumulates. If you run thousands of product URLs, faceted navigation and a crawl budget problem, that is ongoing work — see ecommerce SEO.
Every site we build ships with all of this done as standard rather than sold as a phase. See how on our web development page.
Questions we get.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is everything that determines whether a search engine can reach your pages, read them, and understand what they are about. Site speed, crawlability, indexing, structured data, site architecture, mobile behavior and security all sit inside it. It is the least visible SEO work and frequently the highest return, because no amount of good content helps a page that Google cannot crawl.
How do I know if I have technical SEO problems?
Some signs are visible without any tools: pages that load slowly on a phone, content that jumps around while loading, or search results showing the wrong description for your pages. Beyond that, Google Search Console reports coverage and Core Web Vitals issues directly and it is free. Our free audit walks you through twenty checks you can run yourself in about ten minutes.
Does site speed really affect rankings?
Yes, and it has since 2021. Google measures three specific metrics called Core Web Vitals and publishes the thresholds openly. But rankings are the smaller half of it. A slow site loses visitors before the page appears, so you pay twice, once in ranking and once in conversion.
What is schema markup and do I need it?
Schema is structured data added to a page in a format machines read directly, telling them what your business is, what you sell, where you work and what your hours are. It matters more every year, because AI answer engines rely on structured data rather than guessing from your layout. If you want to be quoted in an AI answer, this is table stakes.
Can technical SEO fix a site that lost rankings?
Sometimes. Ranking drops have several possible causes and technical problems are one of them, alongside algorithm updates, lost links and competitors improving. The first job is diagnosing which one you actually have, because fixing the wrong thing costs months. We have a free checker that walks through the likely causes.
Should I fix technical issues before creating content?
Usually yes, at least the serious ones. Publishing good content onto a site that cannot be crawled properly is pouring water into a leaky bucket. That said, you do not need a perfect site before you publish anything. We prioritize the issues that are actually costing you and get moving.
What is your site's foundation like?
Send us your website address. We will run the technical checks and tell you plainly what is wrong and what it is costing you.
- 01We run the crawl. Before we talk, so the first conversation is about findings.
- 02You get the real list. Prioritized by impact, not padded to look thorough.
- 03You can fix it yourself. The list is yours either way. Plenty of it is a morning's work.
Free visibility check
Takes about a minute. No sales sequence, no spam, and we don't sell or share anything.