Technical SEO Basics for Developers

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website's infrastructure to help search engines crawl, understand, and index your content more effectively. While content and backlinks are crucial, poor technical implementation can prevent even the best content from ranking.

As a developer, you have direct control over many of these factors. Here's what you need to know.

Core Web Vitals

Google uses Core Web Vitals as ranking signals. These metrics measure real-world user experience:

Crawlability & Indexing

Before Google can rank your pages, it needs to find and understand them:

User-agent: *
Allow: /
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /api/

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2025-01-10</lastmod>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Meta Tags & Structured Data

Proper meta tags help search engines understand your content:

<!-- Essential Meta Tags -->
<title>Page Title - Up to 60 characters</title>
<meta name="description" content="Description up to 155 chars">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page">

<!-- Open Graph -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Title for Social">
<meta property="og:description" content="Description">
<meta property="og:image" content="/og-image.png">

<!-- JSON-LD Structured Data -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Article Title",
  "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Author" }
}
</script>

HTTPS & Security

HTTPS is a confirmed ranking signal. Ensure your site:

• Has a valid SSL certificate installed
• Redirects all HTTP requests to HTTPS
• Uses HSTS headers for added security
• Has no mixed content warnings

Mobile-First Indexing

Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. Ensure:

• Responsive design works across all devices
• Same content is available on mobile and desktop
• Touch targets are appropriately sized (48x48px minimum)
• Viewport meta tag is properly configured

Developer Checklist