The short answer
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the work that lets search engines and AI crawlers reach, render and index a website. It covers crawl access, site speed and Core Web Vitals, canonical tags, redirects, sitemaps, structured data and duplicate URLs. On-page and content work only pays off once this layer is clean.
Platforms
Every platform breaks in its own way.
Builds stay on Shopify. Technical SEO runs on whatever platform the site already uses.
01
Shopify
Fixed URLs, app bloat
Duplicate product paths through collections, /collections/all, tag filter URLs, app scripts on every page, and a robots.txt you can only change through robots.txt.liquid. We fix these in the theme and the robots file. We are a Shopify Select Partner, so this is where most of our technical work happens.
- Theme code
- robots.txt.liquid
- App audit
- Canonicals
02
WordPress
Plugins, themes, hosting
Plugin conflicts, heavy page builders, duplicate archive pages, slow hosting and SEO plugins fighting each other over canonicals and sitemaps.
- Plugins
- Page speed
- Archives
- Sitemaps
03
Custom and headless
Rendering and routing
Client-side rendering, wrong status codes for crawlers, hand-built sitemaps and redirects that only one developer knows about.
- Server rendering
- Status codes
- Routing
- Sitemaps
What breaks
Six things that quietly cap your rankings.
None of these show up on the homepage. All of them show up in Search Console, and most sites have at least three.
Crawl and index bloat
Filter URLs, tag pages and internal search results eating the crawl budget, while the pages that should rank sit unindexed.
Duplicate URLs
Product paths through collections, variant URLs and pagination creating several versions of the same page, with canonicals that do not agree.
Core Web Vitals
LCP, INP and CLS failures from oversized images, app scripts and layout shift, measured on real users rather than a lab score.
Redirects and broken links
Chains, loops, 404s and soft 404s left behind by redesigns, migrations and deleted products.
Structured data
Missing, invalid or conflicting schema, so Google and AI engines cannot tell what the page, product or company is.
JavaScript rendering
Content and links that only appear after scripts run, so crawlers see less of the page than visitors do.
Core Web Vitals
The numbers we work to.
Google's "good" thresholds, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits. A lab score of 100 means nothing if real users on mid-range phones still wait.
| Metric | Good | What usually breaks it | How we fix it |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP, largest contentful paint | 2.5 s or less | Oversized hero images, slow server response, render-blocking CSS | Image sizing, preload and fetch priority, critical CSS |
| INP, interaction to next paint | 200 ms or less | Heavy app scripts and long JavaScript tasks | Script audit, deferring, removing apps nobody uses |
| CLS, cumulative layout shift | 0.1 or less | Images without dimensions, late banners, font swaps | Reserved space, font loading, fixed banner slots |
| Redirect hops | 1 | Chains left from old migrations | Every chain flattened to one 301 |
The technical audit
What lands in your inbox.
A standalone deliverable, written so your own developer can work through it if you would rather not hire us for the fixes.
- Crawl of every indexable URL
- Index coverage from Search Console
- Core Web Vitals from real-user field data
- Canonical and duplicate URL map
- Redirect chains, loops and 404s
- robots.txt and XML sitemap review
- AI crawler access for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot
- Structured data validation
- JavaScript rendering check
- Internal link depth and orphan pages
- Mobile rendering at four screen sizes
- Prioritized fix list with hours per fix
D2C and B2B
Same layer, different problems.
D2C stores
Big catalogs, many variants
- Faceted filters creating thousands of thin URLs
- Variant and color URLs competing with each other
- Sold-out and seasonal pages handled badly
- Multi-market stores with broken hreflang
B2B companies
Gated catalogs, technical buyers
- Catalogs and price lists behind logins Google cannot see
- Spec sheets and datasheets locked inside PDFs
- Dealer or regional sites splitting authority
- Quote and RFQ pages missing from tracking
Process
Crawl, fix, prove it.
01
Crawl
Full crawl, Search Console and field data pulled before anyone forms an opinion.
Week 1
02
Fix list
Every issue with its location, expected impact and the hours it will take.
Week 1 to 2
03
Fix sprint
Fixes made in the theme code, CMS or server configuration, critical items first.
After the fix list
04
Validate
Each fix checked in Search Console, PageSpeed and the schema validator before it is marked done.
Per fix
05
Monitor
Coverage, Core Web Vitals and errors watched monthly so the site stays clean.
Monthly
Fit
Whether this is worth a call.
A good fit
Sites like these
- Traffic dropped after a redesign or migration
- Large catalogs on Shopify or WordPress
- B2B sites with spec-heavy or gated pages
- Teams planning a platform move
- Stores failing Core Web Vitals on mobile
Probably not us
We would point you elsewhere
- Anyone chasing a PageSpeed score of 100 for a screenshot
- Sites where we cannot get code or CMS access
- "Run a tool and send the PDF" requests
- Hosting problems that will not be changed
Questions
Technical SEO questions.
What does technical SEO include?
Everything that decides whether search engines and AI crawlers can reach, render and index your site: crawl access, robots.txt and sitemaps, canonicals and duplicate URLs, redirects and broken links, Core Web Vitals, structured data, JavaScript rendering and internal link depth. It is the first layer of every audit we run, because nothing above it works until it does.
How is technical SEO different from on-page SEO?
Technical SEO is about whether a page can be found and processed at all. On-page SEO is about what the page says once it is found: keywords, titles, headings and content. A well-written page that is blocked, duplicated or slow will still underperform, which is why we fix the technical layer first.
Do Core Web Vitals still affect rankings in 2026?
Yes, as part of Google's page experience signals, though they rarely outrank relevance on their own. They matter most on competitive terms, where pages are otherwise close, and on conversion, where a slow page loses buyers on every visit. We measure them on real-user field data, not only a lab score.
Can you fix technical SEO on Shopify?
Most of it, yes. Shopify fixes its URL structure, so some paths cannot change, but duplicate product URLs, canonicals, app script bloat, structured data and robots rules can all be handled in the theme and in robots.txt.liquid. We are a Shopify Select Partner, so this is where most of our technical work happens.
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
Usually one to two weeks, depending on the size of the site. A store with a few hundred URLs is quicker than a B2B catalog with tens of thousands. You get a prioritized fix list showing where each issue sits, its expected impact and the hours it will take to fix.
Will migrating platforms hurt my rankings?
It does not have to. Rankings are usually lost to missing or chained redirects, changed URLs nobody mapped, and content dropped in the move. We export every indexed URL first, build a one-to-one 301 redirect map, test it on staging, and monitor coverage and rankings after launch so problems get fixed while they are small.
Do you do technical SEO for B2B websites?
Yes. B2B sites have their own technical problems: catalogs and price lists behind logins Google cannot see, spec sheets locked inside PDFs, dealer or regional sites splitting authority, and quote pages missing from tracking. We fix those on Shopify B2B, WordPress and custom builds, and measure the result on qualified inquiries.
Do you send a report or fix the issues?
Both, your choice. The audit is a standalone deliverable written so your own developer can work through it. If you want us to do the fixes, we make them in the theme code, CMS or server configuration ourselves, and validate each one in Search Console and PageSpeed before marking it done.
Send the URL. We will tell you what is holding it back.
A crawl, a Search Console check and a Core Web Vitals read, sent back as a prioritized fix list. Yours to keep whether or not we do the fixes.