Technical SEO That Makes Your Site Work for Google

What Is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO covers everything about how your website is built and configured that affects search engine visibility. While on-page SEO focuses on content and keywords, technical SEO focuses on the infrastructure: how fast your site loads, whether Google can access all your pages, how your URLs are structured, and whether your site works properly on mobile devices.

Think of it like a building. On-page SEO is the interior design and furnishings. Technical SEO is the foundation, plumbing, and electrical. You need both, but if the foundation has cracks, no amount of nice furniture will make the building safe.

Many Miami businesses have technical issues they don’t know about. Their site looks fine to visitors, but Google sees problems: pages that can’t be indexed, slow load times that hurt rankings, mobile issues that frustrate users. These hidden problems explain why some sites with good content still don’t rank.

Technical Issues We Find and Fix

Crawling and Indexing

Before Google can rank your pages, it needs to find them (crawling) and add them to its database (indexing). If either step fails, your pages won’t appear in search results no matter how good they are.

Common crawling and indexing problems:

• Blocked by robots.txt Your robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to avoid. Misconfigured, it can accidentally block important pages from being crawled.
• Noindex tags A noindex tag tells Google not to include a page in search results. Sometimes these get added during development and never removed, or plugins add them without you knowing.
• Orphan pages Pages with no internal links pointing to them are hard for Google to find. If Google can’t reach a page through your site’s link structure, it might not get crawled.
• Crawl budget waste Google allocates a limited crawl budget to each site. If that budget gets used on duplicate pages, old URLs, or unimportant sections, your important pages get crawled less often.
• Missing or broken XML sitemap Your XML sitemap tells Google which pages exist and when they were updated. A missing, outdated, or error-filled sitemap makes crawling less efficient.

We use Google Search Console to identify which pages are indexed, which have errors, and why certain pages aren’t appearing in search results.

Site Speed Optimization

Page speed affects both rankings and user behavior. Google has confirmed that speed is a ranking factor, and slow sites have higher bounce rates. If your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, you’re losing visitors before they even see your content.

Common speed issues we fix:

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are Google’s specific metrics for measuring user experience. They became a ranking factor in 2021 and measure three things: how fast your largest content loads (LCP), how quickly the page responds to interaction (INP), and how stable the layout is as it loads (CLS).

We measure your Core Web Vitals using both lab data (controlled tests) and field data (real user measurements). Field data matters more for rankings because it reflects actual visitor experience. You can see your site’s Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console.

Mobile Optimization

Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily looks at the mobile version of your site when deciding rankings. If your mobile experience is poor, your rankings suffer even for desktop searches.

Mobile issues we look for:

• Responsive design Does the layout adapt to different screen sizes? Are buttons and links easy to tap? Is text readable without zooming?
• Mobile page speed Mobile connections are often slower than desktop. Speed issues that are minor on desktop can be severe on mobile.
• Content parity Is all the content from your desktop site available on mobile? Hidden content or collapsed sections might not get indexed.
• Intrusive interstitials Popups that cover the main content on mobile can hurt rankings. Google penalizes sites that frustrate mobile users with aggressive popups.

Site Architecture

Site architecture is how your pages are organized and linked together. Good architecture makes it easy for both users and search engines to find content. Poor architecture buries important pages deep in your site where they rarely get crawled.

Architecture principles we follow:

• Shallow depth Important pages should be reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage. Deep pages get crawled less often and receive less link authority.
• Logical URL structure URLs should follow a clear hierarchy: /services/plumbing/drain-cleaning/ tells both users and Google where that page fits in your site.
• Hub and spoke model Topic clusters with a main hub page linking to related subtopic pages help Google understand your topical expertise.
• Breadcrumb navigation Breadcrumbs show users where they are in your site structure and provide additional internal links that help with crawling.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is code that helps search engines understand what your content means, not just what it says. It can enable rich results in search: star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, business hours, and other enhanced listings that stand out.

Schema types we implement for Miami businesses:

Other Technical Issues We Address

• HTTPS and security Your site should use HTTPS. We check for mixed content warnings, expired certificates, and security headers.
• Canonical tags Canonical tags tell Google which version of a page is the original when duplicate content exists. Incorrect canonicals can cause indexing problems.
• Hreflang tags For Miami businesses with Spanish content, hreflang tags tell Google which language version to show to which users.
• Redirect chains When one redirect leads to another, and another, it slows down crawling and dilutes link equity. We clean up redirect chains.
• 404 errors Broken pages create a bad user experience and waste crawl budget. We identify 404s and set up proper redirects.
• Duplicate content The same content accessible at multiple URLs confuses Google. We identify duplicates and implement canonical solutions.

Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO

Both happen on your website, but they focus on different things. On-page SEO is about content: title tags, headings, keywords, internal links. Technical SEO is about infrastructure: speed, crawling, indexing, mobile, security.

You need both. Great content on a technically broken site won’t rank. A technically perfect site with thin, unfocused content won’t rank either. Our SEO audit covers both areas so you know exactly where to focus.