What is Technical SEO? Basic Information and Implementation Tips

One of the three main pillars of SEO is Technical SEO audits, which primarily include the following topics:

• Crawling

• Indexing

• Site Architecture

• URL Structure

• Mobile Friendliness

• Site Speed

• Sitemap

• Robots.txt File

• HTTPS

• Canonical URL

These are the main topics that make up a Technical SEO audit. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

1. Crawling

Search engines—especially Google—crawl websites, add them to their index, and then rank them based on certain factors. Pages that achieve rankings become accessible to users and start generating traffic. In short, for your target audience to reach you, your website must be crawlable by search engines.

By sending various signals to search engines, you can make your important pages more crawlable while blocking unimportant or private pages you don’t want users to see. Search engines allocate a unique crawl budget for each website. Using this budget effectively allows you to reach a wider audience.

Robots.txt

One of the most important files that helps improve crawlability performance is the Robots.txt file. Search engines use bots with special algorithms to crawl websites. With a Robots.txt file, you can send signals to these bots to:

• Make your site crawlable

• Specify the important pages you want crawled

• Block pages you don’t want indexed

Search engines will still crawl sites without a Robots.txt file, but having one helps them understand your site better and crawl it more efficiently.

2. Indexing

After successfully crawling a website, search engine bots store each page in their index. Indexing is like a filing system where all crawled pages are stored in a database, ranked based on various factors, and then displayed to users. Just as crawlability is crucial, indexability is equally important for your pages to generate traffic and reach your target audience.

Sitemap

A sitemap is a file that contains all the pages on your site. For search engines, it acts as a roadmap. You can categorize pages by type, assign priority levels, and specify crawl frequency.

Even without a sitemap, a website can be crawled. However, search engines may overlook some important pages during crawling and fail to index them. This is why sitemaps are important for crawlability. You can also remove unimportant pages from your sitemap to send signals to search engines.

Canonical Tags

Canonical tags allow us to indicate the standard version of a webpage to search engines. Many websites—especially e-commerce sites—may have pages with similar structures or content. When Google encounters many such pages, it may automatically choose one as the standard, which could harm important pages. Therefore, setting canonical tags manually is important.

3. Site Architecture

Your website’s architecture should be understandable to search engines and offer a high level of user experience. A website with a hierarchical structure can be easily navigated by both users and search engines. In an effective site architecture, click depth should not exceed 3 clicks—meaning a visitor should be able to reach the final page from the homepage within three clicks.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs, usually located just below the navigation bar, help users understand which page they are on. They also help search engines better understand your site’s structure. Google frequently recommends using breadcrumbs.

4. URL Structure

One of the most important aspects of a Technical SEO audit is the URL structure—specifically how it looks. Users should be able to get an idea of the page content simply by looking at the URL. For an effective URL structure:

 

For an effec

• Use s

• Include yo

• Avoid unnecessary parameters or session IDs

• Use hyphens (-) instead_) to_

• Keep all let

• Avoid using special ch

• Ensure URLs are un

• Maintain a consis

A clean and descriptive URL not only improves user experience but also helps search engines better under

5.

With the majority of searches now coming from mobile devices, mobile friendliness is a critical ranking factor. Search engines, especially Google, use mobile-first indexing—meaning they primarily use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking.

To ensure

• Use respo

• Av

• Ensure text is readabl

• Make clickable elem

• Test your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool

6. Site Speed

Page speed directly impacts both user experience and search rankings. A slow-loading website increases bounce rates and decreases conversions.

Ways to improve site speed include:

• Compressing images without losing quality

• Enabling browser caching

• Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

• Minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files

• Reducing server response time

• Eliminating render-blocking resources

7. HTTPS

Security is a major concern for both users and search engines. Using HTTPS ensures the data exchanged between the website and the visitor is encrypted. Google treats HTTPS as a ranking signal, and browsers may mark non-HTTPS sites as “Not Secure.”

To implement HTTPS:

• Obtain and install an SSL/TLS certificate

• Update all internal links to HTTPS versions

• Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS

• Update sitemap and robots.txt with HTTPS URLs

8. Canonical URL

A canonical URL tells search engines the preferred version of a page when there are multiple URLs with similar or identical content. This helps avoid duplicate content issues and ensures that link equity is consolidated to the correct page.

Best practices for canonical URLs:

• Add a <link rel="canonical" href="URL"> tag in the <head> section

• Use self-referencing canonical tags on every page

• Avoid conflicting canonical signals (e.g., different canonical tags across versions)

• Ensure canonical URLs point to the preferred indexable version of the page

✅ Conclusion:
Technical SEO audits are the foundation of a strong search engine presence. By ensuring proper crawling, indexing, and a well-structured website architecture, you not only help search engines understand your site better but also deliver a seamless user experience. Consistently optimizing these technical aspects will improve your rankings, organic traffic, and overall online visibility.