What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO describes processes relating to technical elements of your website or server that help to improve Search Engine visibility. Optimising your website to make it easier for Search Engine bots to crawl and index will make it more likely to appear at the top of organic search results.

For example, this could involve ensuring your website architecture works for users or solving any crawl errors found in regular site audits.

Technical SEO elements

Technical SEO elements include:

  • Website architecture and layout
  • Indexation
  • Schema
  • Crawl errors
  • Broken links
  • Link building
  • HTTPS status codes
  • XML sitemaps
  • Site speed and loading times
  • Plugins
  • Mobile friendly content
  • Cannibalisation of keywords or content
  • Robots.txt
  • User experience and navigation

How important is technical SEO?

There are a wide range of technical elements that can affect the way Google crawls, renders, indexes and ranks your web pages. Technical SEO work can improve crawlability and the accuracy of indexing. In other words, it can help Search Engines to understand your content and rank it in relation to user queries.

Ranking on page 1 of Google for relevant terms is essential for any business looking to grow its leads and conversions.

Did you know?

  • 75% of people never scroll past the first page of Search Engines (Hubspot)
  • And 57% of users would not recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile website (Safari Digital)

This means that it’s hugely important to keep the technical aspects of your website up to date and in keeping with best practices in order to maximise visibility.

Good technical SEO is also beneficial for your users. A slow site speed or clunky navigation could discourage people from spending time on your website.

Advanced Technical SEO services

Explore some of the SEO services we offer

Technical SEO consultancy

We’ll work with you on your technical SEO strategy, aligning your website to the latest industry requirements and working on an integrated strategy to maximise results and achieve your specific objectives. Whether it’s a one-off piece of work or ongoing support, our experts can help you overcome technical hurdles.

Technical SEO audit

An SEO audit will review all technical aspects of your website, along with your overall SEO strategy to identify any issues or opportunities - from indexation issues to the reasons behind sudden drops in organic traffic. It will include recommendations and solutions to improve visibility and performance. Our comprehensive audits cover technical SEO, on-page SEO and content.

Technical SEO optimisation services

We can advise you on how to optimise your website and content for Search Engines, in order to increase traffic and win important keyword rankings. Our team can provide ongoing implementation services, keeping your site updated and fully optimised.

Solving crawl errors

Long redirect chains and infinite loops lead to a number of problems that can damage your SEO efforts. They make it difficult for Search Engines to crawl your site, which affects how well your web pages are indexed, slows down your site's load speed, and, as a result, may have a negative impact on your rankings and user experience.

Following our regular audits, we will work to resolve any crawl errors such as broken links, 404 redirects and duplicates on an ongoing basis.

Technical monitoring, tracking and reporting

We will closely monitor the performance of your website by generating regular site crawls, health audits and reviews to identify any new issues or opportunities. This includes Google Search Console, Analytics and Tag Manager set-up. We also provide detailed monthly reports of our findings and recommendations.

Website migrations

Smooth website migrations require comprehensive planning and careful consideration in order not to lose valuable rankings and traffic. We have helped numerous clients successfully migrate their websites, working closely with external developers to mitigate risks to organic performance.

Website architecture and navigation

A clear, easy-to-navigate website structure is essential for both the user and Search Engines. Whether you’re building a new website or looking to improve the usability of an existing site, our experts can help you to optimise information architecture and navigation.

URL structure and linking

Optimised URL structures promote site visibility. We can provide templates and guidance on the use of Canonical tags, as well as internal linking structure and optimisation.

Site speed

A fast-loading site is vital on two fronts; to show Google that your site is worthy of ranking in top positions, and to retain users.

Google focuses on mobile first and then desktop to determine issues and benefits to your site ranking. Un-optimised images and the size of the JavaScript and CSS files used on a webpage are some of the important factors for a page's load time. Having lots of clunky JavaScript and CSS files make your webpage "heavier" in weight, thus increasing its load time. This in turn leads to a poor user experience and lower search engine rankings. We can help by:

  • Using a variety of tools to regularly check and analyse the loading speeds of your desktop and mobile sites
  • Suggesting improvements for elements such as First Contentful Paint (FCP), Last Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) to reduce the loading speeds of specific pages
  • Compressing JavaScript and CSS files that are slowing down your pages
  • Minifying (removing unnecessary lines, white space and comments from the source code) JavaScript and CSS files to decrease page load time and provide a better user experience
  • Identifying plugins that are adding extraneous CSS and providing recommendations for optimisation

Schema markup guidance

Schema.org is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way Search Engines read and represent your page in SERPs. Schema markup helps your website rank better for all kinds of content types. It can boost your visibility in the SERPs with rich snippets, which, in turn, can increase your organic traffic.

For example, FAQ Schema can improve site visits by increasing the chance of your FAQs ranking as rich snippets.

Breadcrumbs schema is one of the most common schema types that Google will pick and it helps to increase both the relevancy of your search results as well as your overall real-estate on the page, which encourages better click-through rates.

Technical SEO support for new website builds

Technical SEO provides the foundations for good website performance, and it should be considered from the very conception of a new website.

We’ve designed many websites, and have advised our clients’ developers on SEO best practices for new website builds.

Algorithm update monitoring and support

We have helped numerous clients navigate Core Web Vitals to maintain rankings and traffic. We can help guide you to meet the latest Search Engine standards, including the helpful content update, by improving page content and experience. This can help you to avoid or rectify any Google penalties.

Mobile SEO

51% of consumers trust a site that has been optimised for mobile search (Safari Digital). Mobile is fast becoming the primary touch point for consumers and sites that are not mobile-friendly are unlikely to rank on major Search Engines such as Google. We can advise you on responsive design, accessible content and achieving faster loading speeds.

Global SEO

If you target multiple countries, it’s important to make it clear to Search Engines what language to display content in, and to who. From Hrelfang tag attributes to local SEO - we can help you implement an international strategy that maximises visibility.

 

Technical SEO guide and tips

Use our guides to maximise your website’s potential.

Technical SEO tools

These are just some of the digital marketing auditing tools we regularly use to assess and monitor website performance:

  • Google Search Console - check indexing status, search queries and crawling errors
  • SEMRush - generate regular site health audits
  • AHRefs - assess link building, web rankings and get site audits
  • Screaming Frog - improve your onsite SEO by finding broken links, discovering duplicate content and reviewing Robots etc.
  • Google Page Insights / Web Dev - evaluate mobile and desktop versions of your website and find solutions to speed up loading time

What does a technical SEO agency do? The benefits

Technical website flaws can lead to reduced website performance over time. A technical agency will have the knowledge, experience and capability to identify issues and implement best practices to resolve them, whilst catering to the specific needs of your website and business.

We take a holistic approach to your SEO, keeping up to date with the latest industry updates to help find new opportunities and protect your website from potential threats.

After the initial discovery session, we will conduct a comprehensive audit of your site to uncover any existing or potential issues, and then work with you to implement the best solution for long-term growth.

Benefits of technical SEO

Working on the technical SEO aspects of your website can:

  • Help Search Engines to understand your website content and offering
  • Improve overall website performance
  • Boost organic SEO performance and rankings
  • Help you reach your target audience
  • Improve website usability and speed
  • Help you rank for rich snippets
  • Avoid Search Engine penalties

SEE OUR SUCCESS STORIES

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Reviews from business - SEO services

"Seventh Element were brilliant, did some really good SEO work on our luxury furniture website. Increased traffic and conversion rates, plus were an excellent team to work with" (2022)

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Reviews from business - SEO services

"I’ve worked with SeventhElement for several years, across multiple projects and they nailed the briefs every time - from content strategy to SEO to PPC and to social outreach. They delivered strategic thinking and outstanding performance with each campaign and increased the views of our content by over 1000% to levels we never thought possible" (2021)

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Reviews from business - SEO services

"Have known the team at SeventhElement for several years, their tenacity and resilience were tested with our latest project. They looked at the bigger picture, understood the data and made some excellent suggestions on how to achieve our goal" (2021)

How to choose the right technical SEO agency

An effective technical SEO agency should demonstrate:

  • Technical skills and expertise - we have a diverse network of experts to draw on, including web developers and technical SEO specialists
  • Experience working with a range of CMS - From WordPress to Shopify, our team is adept at a wide range of Content Management Systems
  • Experience working on similar projects - we’ve worked on a wide range of technical website projects for clients big and small. This includes extensive experience working with B2B and innovation businesses. See our success stories to learn more
  • An integrated approach to SEO campaigns - we look at the bigger picture when it comes to SEO, covering on-page, off-page and local SEO services as part of our offering. Technical SEO should go hand in hand with on-page optimisation, content strategy and implementation to get the best results for your business
  • Results that matter - we are dedicated to delivering the results that matter to your business. Whether it’s improved website traffic or a smooth website migration - we have hundreds of successful web projects under our belt

Technical SEO London - FAQ

Find answers to commonly asked questions…

What are technical SEO services?

Technical SEO services are a set of processes, actions and techniques performed by an agency to resolve any performance issues relating to indexation or other technical aspects of your website. This can be as wide-ranging as analysing the structure of a website to fixing crawl errors and redirects. 

What is the difference between technical SEO and SEO?

Technical SEO refers to all of the technical aspects of your website that can affect the way it is crawled and indexed by Search Engines. Think of it as the ‘behind-the-scenes’ side of SEO. For example, optimising source code to improve site loading speed or implementing schema to increase the relevancy of your search results and click-through rates. 

How many types of technical SEO are there?

SEO is typically divided into; on-page, off-page, local and technical SEO. Within technical SEO, there is a range of processes, techniques and activities that can be utilised to improve performance and traffic. 

Is technical SEO difficult?

While some aspects of technical SEO can be done fairly easily by following a guide, other aspects can be complex and require coding or web development expertise. 

How can I do technical page SEO?

To improve your technical SEO yourself, there are several guides available to help you get to grips with the basics. If your current SEO strategy is failing or you aren’t seeing the results you expected, it might be time to call in the help of an expert. 

What are some quick technical SEO wins?

Try these technical quick wins to see a boost in your rankings:

  • Improve core web vitals
  • Implement canonical tags
  • Implement structured data using Schema
  • Implement breadcrumbs to enhance navigation
  • Monitor and troubleshoot indexing
  • Enhance website security
  • Maintain clean code
  • Fix broken links and set up redirects
  • Run a ‘Mobile-Friendly Test’
  • Review site architecture
  • Create dynamic XML Sitemaps
  • Disavow spammy backlinks

Learn more about how to go about these SEO quick wins in our blog.

How much is technical SEO?

All of our technical SEO services are bespoke to your business needs, so costing will be determined on an individual basis. SEO requires a consistent, long-term and multi-channel approach to see results and costing is based on the complexity of the project, hours required and seniority of skill. 

Get in touch to arrange an initial consultation.

Next steps

Nurturing your technical SEO provides the foundations that can ultimately lead to more traffic, leads and conversions. Get in touch to discuss your requirements and pain points and see what could happen if we work together.

Book a free consultation