Technical SEO — the work that decides whether Google can use your site at all
Crawling, rendering, indexing and page experience. Unglamorous, measurable, and the reason a good-looking website can sit on page four for two years without anyone understanding why.
Technical SEO is the part of search work that has almost nothing to do with the words on a page. It is whether Google can reach your pages, render them, understand them, and serve them fast enough on a phone on mobile data. It is also the easiest part of search to oversell, because the client cannot see any of it. So everything on this page is either a threshold Google publishes, a sentence Google has written, or a measurement from a study we name. Where a commonly quoted figure has no retrievable source, we have left it out and told you we did.
What does Google actually measure?
Three metrics, with published thresholds, assessed at the 75th percentile of real visits to your site — not in a lab, and not on your developer’s laptop. Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay as a stable Core Web Vital on 12 March 2024, so an audit still reporting FID is working from an out-of-date list.
2.5s or less / 2.5–4.0s / over 4.0s
200ms or less / 200–500ms / over 500ms
0.1 or less / 0.1–0.25 / over 0.25
The 75th percentile of real user visits, mobile and desktop reported separately
Thresholds as published by Google on web.dev, accessed 16 September 2026. INP replaced First Input Delay as a stable Core Web Vital on 12 March 2024.
The 75th percentile matters more than the numbers themselves. It means three quarters of your real visits have to clear the threshold, so a fast homepage on office fibre does not rescue a slow service page loaded on a phone in a van. It also means the assessment comes from actual Chrome users, which is why a site can pass every synthetic test it is given and still fail in the field.
Do Core Web Vitals actually affect rankings?
Google’s own wording is the safest guide here, so we will use it directly. Search Central states that “Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems”, and in the same document that “there is no single signal”, and that Google “always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par”.
Read together that is a clear and modest claim: speed is a real input and it is not a lever. A slow page with the best answer can still win. A fast page with nothing to say does not start ranking because it got faster. Anyone quoting you a percentage traffic increase from passing Core Web Vitals is quoting a number Google has never published, and we are not going to publish one either.
How does your site compare with everyone else’s?
Better than most people assume, and worse than most agencies imply. HTTP Archive’s Web Almanac analyses Chrome field data across millions of sites each year. These are the July 2025 figures.
48%
56%
62%
77%
81%
HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2025, Performance chapter, using Chrome UX Report field data for July 2025.
Mobile pass rates have moved from 36% in 2023 to 44% in 2024 to 48% in 2025. Two things follow. The bar is rising, so standing still is losing ground. And Largest Contentful Paint is where most sites fail — 62% pass it against 81% for layout stability — which means in practice the work is almost always about what loads first and how heavy it is, not about exotic JavaScript tuning.
What does slowness actually cost you?
The most defensible figure available comes from Google and SOASTA’s analysis of 11 million mobile landing pages across 213 countries: as page load time goes from one second to ten seconds, the probability of a mobile visitor bouncing increases 123%.
We are stating the date deliberately. That analysis is based on 2017 data, mobile networks have improved since, and we are not going to present it as a current measurement. What it establishes is direction and rough magnitude, which is honestly all anyone has.
You will also see “53% of visitors abandon a site that takes more than three seconds” in almost every agency proposal. We could not retrieve a primary source for it, so it does not appear on this page. If a figure matters enough to base a spending decision on, it matters enough to be traceable.
What about schema markup and crawl budget?
Two things that get sold hard and deserve to be put back in proportion.
On structured data, Google’s documentation says plainly that it “does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly”, and that a structured data manual action “doesn’t affect how the page ranks in Google web search”. So schema buys eligibility for richer results. It does not buy position. We add it because eligibility is cheap and worth having, not because it moves you up.
On crawl budget, Google’s own guidance says it applies to sites with over a million pages changing weekly, or more than 10,000 pages changing daily, and that if your site does not have a large number of rapidly changing pages, “you don’t need to read this guide”. A local service business with forty pages does not have a crawl budget problem. If an audit hands you a crawl budget chapter, that chapter is padding.
What a technical SEO engagement actually covers
Six areas. The first two are where nearly all of the recoverable performance sits.
Core Web Vitals from field data
We work from Chrome UX Report data for your actual visitors, not a lab score. Lab tools tell us where to look; field data tells us whether the fix worked.
What loads first, and how heavy it is
LCP is where most sites fail. Hero image format and sizing, font loading, render-blocking resources, and the order in which things arrive.
Mobile-first indexing checks
Google indexes and ranks using the mobile version of your pages. We check the mobile version actually contains the same content, links and structured data as the desktop one.
Crawling and indexing
Robots directives, canonicals, sitemaps, redirect chains, and the pages quietly excluded from the index without anyone noticing for two years.
Structured data that validates
Schema for the page types that support rich results, tested against Google’s own validator, added for eligibility rather than sold to you as a ranking factor.
A prioritised fix list with owners
Every finding ranked by measured impact against effort and written so a developer can act on it. If we are doing the work, that list becomes the schedule.
How will you know the technical work did anything?
Four numbers, measured before and after, every one of them from a source you can open yourself.
Google’s own report, on your own property, using your own visitors. The least arguable number available to either of us.
Reported per page template rather than as a site average, because an average hides the one template that carries your enquiries.
If the pages you want ranked are not in the index, nothing else on this list matters yet.
Taken from Search Console’s enhancement reports. Eligibility, not rankings — we are careful about that difference and you should be too.
Technical SEO pricing: three commitments, published
The audit is a fixed price because its scope is fixed. What varies afterwards is how much of the fix list you want us to implement, and how much you would rather hand to your own developer.
30 minutes
We look at your Search Console data and your Core Web Vitals report and tell you whether you have a technical problem at all. Plenty of sites do not, and we would rather say so.
Agreed before work starts
Crawl, index coverage, Core Web Vitals from field data, mobile parity and structured data. Delivered as a prioritised fix list with impact set against effort, written for a developer to act on.
Optional
You can hand the list to your own developer at no further cost. If you would rather we did it, it is quoted item by item off that same list, so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
Technical SEO: the questions we get asked
Is technical SEO a one-off or an ongoing cost?
The audit is a one-off. The monitoring is not, because sites drift: a plugin update adds a render-blocking script, someone uploads a 4MB hero image, a redirect chain appears. We suggest a check each quarter, which takes about an hour, rather than a retainer that bills monthly for watching a dashboard.
Will fixing Core Web Vitals increase my traffic?
We do not know, and neither does anyone who quotes you a percentage. Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems and that there is no single signal. Speed removes a handicap; it does not manufacture relevance. If your pages do not answer the query, making them faster will not change that.
Do I need schema markup?
It is worth having and it is oversold. Google states that correct markup does not guarantee rich results appear, and that a structured data manual action does not affect how a page ranks. We add it because eligibility is cheap, not because it lifts position.
What about crawl budget?
Almost certainly not your problem. Google’s guidance applies to sites with over a million pages changing weekly, or more than 10,000 changing daily, and says everyone else does not need to read it. If a proposal devotes a section to your crawl budget and you have forty pages, that section is padding.
Can you work with my existing developer?
Yes, and it is often the cheapest route. The deliverable is written to be actionable by somebody else: specific files, specific changes, expected effect. We are happy to be the diagnosis and not the treatment.
My site scores 98 in PageSpeed Insights. Am I fine?
That is the lab score, generated on a simulated device. The ranking-relevant assessment is field data from real Chrome users at the 75th percentile, which sits higher up the same report. A high lab score alongside a failing field assessment is one of the most common patterns we see.
Send us your domain. We will tell you whether you have a technical problem worth paying to fix.
Thirty minutes, no obligation. If your Core Web Vitals already pass and your pages are indexed, we will say so and point you at whatever is actually holding you back instead.
Book a 30 minute consultation
Where this fits with the rest of your marketing
Social media management
Two platforms chosen from reach data, published on a schedule you can keep, reported in enquiries.
Google Business Profile management
Where most local search demand actually lands. Relevance, distance and prominence, handled properly.
Web design Houston
The site the technical work is applied to. Built to turn a visit into a phone call.
Industries we build for
Roofing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and six more trades, each with its own page.
Google, Core Web Vitals thresholds as published on web.dev. Accessed 16 September 2026. INP replaced First Input Delay as a stable Core Web Vital on 12 March 2024.
Google Search Central, “Understanding page experience in Google Search results”. Updated 10 December 2025.
HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025, Performance chapter, using Chrome UX Report field data for July 2025.
Google and SOASTA, “Find out how you stack up to new industry benchmarks for mobile page speed”, Think with Google. 11 million mobile landing pages across 213 countries; published 2018, based on 2017 data.
Google Search Central, structured data general guidelines (updated 10 July 2026) and crawl budget management for large sites (updated 22 July 2026).
Figures we chose not to publish: “53% of visitors abandon after three seconds”, and any percentage traffic uplift attributed to passing Core Web Vitals. Neither has a primary source we could retrieve and check.