Marketing6 min read

Technical SEO

Optimize technical SEO - crawlability, indexability, Core Web Vitals, structured data, international SEO, and site architecture.

SEOTechnical SEOCore Web VitalsStructured DataCrawling

skill: Technical SEO category: Marketing tags: [SEO, Technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, Structured Data, Crawling] readingTime: 6

Technical SEO ensures Google can find, crawl, index, and understand your pages. Without it, great content doesn't rank. Technical SEO problems compound silently - a misconfigured robots.txt can deindex your entire site in days. Audit regularly: Google Search Console is your primary monitoring tool.

Workflow

Configure robots.txt and XML sitemaprobots.txt tells crawlers which pages to skip. XML sitemap tells them which pages to prioritize. Both are foundational for large sites.
Implement canonical tags and handle duplicatesDuplicate content splits ranking signals across multiple URLs. Canonical tags consolidate authority to the preferred URL.
Optimize Core Web VitalsGoogle uses Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) as a ranking signal. Poor vitals reduce ranking potential for otherwise strong pages.
Add structured data markupStructured data (JSON-LD) enables rich results in Google Search - star ratings, FAQs, breadcrumbs, and pricing appear directly in SERPs, increasing click-through rate.
Handle JavaScript rendering for SEOGoogle renders JavaScript but with a delay. JavaScript-heavy sites may have crawl gaps - important content visible to users but not crawled by Google.

Output Format

Technical SEO: robots.txt + XML sitemap, self-canonical on every page, Core Web Vitals optimization, JSON-LD structured data, and SSG/SSR for JavaScript rendering.

robots.txt: Disallow only non-indexable paths
Sitemap: /sitemap.xml with lastmod dates
Canonical: <link rel="canonical"> on every page
Core Web Vitals: preload LCP + set image dimensions + break long tasks
JSON-LD: Article + FAQ + BreadcrumbList schemas
Rendering: Next.js SSG for blog, SSR for dynamic pages

Examples

Input

Output

Edge Cases & Gotchas

Hreflang for international SEO - For multilingual sites, hreflang tells Google which version to show per country/language. Must be bidirectional (each language version references all others) or Google ignores it.
Crawl budget - Large sites (1M+ pages) must manage crawl budget. Google limits crawl frequency - too many pages = important pages crawled infrequently. Disallow thin/duplicate content to preserve budget for high-value pages.
Infinite scroll and crawling - Google cannot scroll - infinite scroll content below the initial viewport may not be crawled. Provide paginated HTML alternatives or prerender the content.
Core Web Vitals field vs. lab data - Lighthouse (lab) measures a simulated page load. Google ranks based on field data (real users via CrUX). Field data may differ significantly from lab data due to real-world devices, networks, and user behavior.

When to Break These Rules

Skip structured data for simple brochure sites without reviews, FAQs, or products - the implementation cost is not worth it without content that qualifies for rich results.
Use client-side rendering (React SPA) without SSR for app content behind login - authenticated content is not crawlable anyway, so SEO rendering doesn't apply.

Reference Files

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/
https://ahrefs.com/blog/technical-seo/