Fix the technical issues holding back your rankings

Technical SEO covers everything on your website that affects how search engines crawl, index, and rank it, separate from the content itself. That includes site speed and Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, crawlability, indexing controls, HTTPS security, structured data, and URL architecture. Think of it as the foundation your whole SEO strategy sits on. If the foundation is broken, even the best content and backlinks underperform, because Google never processes them properly in the first place.

Common signs include pages missing from Google entirely, slow load times (especially on mobile), coverage errors or Core Web Vitals warnings in Google Search Console, declining organic traffic with no obvious cause, and duplicate content issues. Search Console gives you a quick first read. The catch is that many technical problems sit beneath the surface, and you only find them with a proper crawl. That's why we audit before we recommend anything.

Technical fixes can show ranking improvements within 2-4 weeks as Google recrawls and reprocesses your site. The fastest gains usually come from critical fixes like removing indexing blocks or making major speed improvements. The exact timeline depends on how often Google crawls your site, which is influenced by its size and authority. We prioritise fixes by expected impact so the most meaningful improvements land first, then watch Search Console data to confirm the changes are taking effect.

We do both. You get a full audit report with prioritised recommendations, and then we implement the fixes. On platforms like WordPress and Shopify we make the changes directly. In more complex development environments we write detailed technical briefs for your dev team and review their work to make sure everything lands correctly. Either way, we take responsibility for getting issues resolved, not just identified.

Technical SEO audits are custom-scoped and quoted on site size and complexity. A 50-page site needs far less work than a 5,000-page e-commerce build. A standalone audit covers a full crawl analysis, Core Web Vitals assessment, structured data review, and a prioritised action plan. If you engage us for ongoing SEO, the audit is included in onboarding at no extra cost. Pricing is confirmed in the proposal after a discovery call.

We combine several tools because no single one catches everything. Screaming Frog handles deep crawl analysis, Google Search Console provides indexing and performance data, PageSpeed Insights and Chrome DevTools cover Core Web Vitals, and Ahrefs monitors backlinks and site health. We also run custom scripts for issues specific to your CMS or platform. The tools gather the data. The value is in knowing which of the hundred flagged issues actually matter for your rankings.

Both. We recommend an initial audit and fix phase, then ongoing monitoring. Websites are not static. CMS updates, new content, design changes, and plugin conflicts all introduce new technical issues over time, and catching them early is far cheaper than recovering lost rankings. For most New Zealand business websites, a quarterly technical review is enough once the initial fixes are in place. Larger or more complex sites benefit from monthly monitoring.

Most technical SEO changes happen behind the scenes and are invisible to your visitors. Fixing canonical tags, updating robots.txt, improving server response times, and adding structured data don't change how your site looks or reads. Speed work can involve optimising images or changing how CSS and JavaScript load, but we make sure those changes improve the user experience rather than compromise it, and we coordinate with your design team if anything visible needs to shift.