Technical SEO Services
Technical SEO Services: Crawl Budget, Rendering and Core Web Vitals Fixes
Featured in Digital Reference's Best UK Digital Marketing Agencies 2026 - Improved Site Speed. Better Rankings. Higher Conversions.
Technical SEO is the foundation everything else sits on. If your site is slow, poorly structured, or has crawl issues, no amount of content or links will save you. We fix the infrastructure so your SEO strategy has solid ground.
Companies we've worked with
durhamlane: Catching the Catastrophic SEO Issue Other Experts Missed
Before founding Visionary, Chris was the sole Digital Marketing Specialist at durhamlane - a UK B2B sales acceleration business. The headline moment: catching a pre-launch technical SEO issue that would have cost the business hundreds of thousands of pounds, after every previously-engaged consultant had signed off.
Page-view growth
Revenue, no SEO budget
Saved (catastrophic catch)
In-house tenure
Overview
Technical SEO Services That Fix Crawling, Rendering and Indexing
Our technical SEO services find and fix the infrastructure faults that stop good content ranking: wasted crawl budget, index bloat, slow Core Web Vitals, JavaScript that Googlebot never sees. Every engagement starts with our 47-point audit and ends with verified fixes, not a PDF of findings.
The deliverables are named and specific, and they are all on this page: crawl budget management, log file analysis, Core Web Vitals work measured on INP, JavaScript rendering checks, index bloat clean-up, faceted navigation control, migration support and international hreflang. We implement on platforms like Shopify and WordPress ourselves, or hand your developers ticket-ready specifications. Then we verify every fix in Search Console and re-crawl to confirm it held.
Named deliverables
- ■Crawl budget management
- ■Log file analysis
- ■Core Web Vitals (INP)
- ■JavaScript rendering
- ■Index bloat clean-up
- ■Faceted navigation control
- ■Migration support
- ■International hreflang
Definition
What Is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the work of making a website easy for search engines to crawl, render, index and serve fast. It covers everything between your server and the search result: architecture, status codes, Core Web Vitals, structured data, and whether JavaScript content ever reaches Googlebot.
It decides the ceiling on everything else. A site that wastes crawl budget gets new pages indexed late. A site with index bloat dilutes its authority across URLs that will never earn a click. A template that fails INP loses rankings it already earned. None of these are content problems, and no amount of new content fixes them.
Crawl
What Googlebot fetches
Render
What Googlebot sees
Index
What Google keeps
The same infrastructure now feeds AI search. GPTBot, PerplexityBot and their peers are weaker renderers than Googlebot, so server-rendered HTML and clean structure determine whether an AI SEO agency programme has anything to work with. Technical SEO is the entry ticket to both kinds of visibility.
Deliverables 1-4
Crawl Budget, Log File Analysis and Index Control
Large sites rarely have a content problem first; they have a crawl problem. These four deliverables control what Googlebot fetches and what enters the index, and they are where our audits most often find revenue sitting untouched.
Crawl budget management
Crawl budget is the number of URLs Googlebot will fetch on your site in a given period. We find where it leaks: parameter URLs, infinite filter combinations, redirect chains, soft 404s and orphaned sections that soak up requests your money pages need. Fixes go in via robots.txt rules, internal link changes and sitemap hygiene, then we watch Search Console Crawl Stats to confirm the shift. For the ecommerce-specific version of this work, our ecommerce crawl budget guide shows the exact URL patterns we hunt first.
Log file analysis
Server logs are the only ground-truth record of what search engine bots actually request, how often, and what status codes they get back. Crawl simulations guess; logs know. We analyse them to find sections Googlebot ignores, error responses it keeps hitting, and the gap between what you want crawled and what is being crawled. On large sites this one deliverable regularly explains ranking problems that no site crawl can see.
Index bloat clean-up
Index bloat is thin, duplicate or parameter URLs sitting in Google's index and diluting your site's quality signals. We compare what is indexed against what should be, then remove the excess with noindex directives, canonical consolidation, 410s for dead sections and tightened sitemaps. The target is simple: every indexed URL should have a job.
Faceted navigation control
Filters and facets multiply one category into thousands of crawlable URLs. We set explicit rules: which facet combinations deserve to be indexed because they match real search demand, which stay crawlable but unindexed, and which are blocked outright. Done well, faceted navigation becomes a rankings asset instead of a crawl trap.
Deliverables 5-8
Core Web Vitals, JavaScript Rendering, Migrations and Hreflang
These deliverables cover how fast pages feel, whether Google can see your content at all, and how to move or internationalise a site without losing rankings.
Core Web Vitals: INP, LCP and CLS
LCP 2.5s · INP 200ms · CLS 0.1
We optimise to Google's field thresholds: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint within 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1, all at the 75th percentile of real users. INP replaced First Input Delay in March 2024, and it is the vital most sites now fail, because it measures every interaction, not just the first. We work from CrUX field data rather than lab scores, because field data is what Google uses.
JavaScript rendering
Raw HTML vs rendered DOM
Google renders JavaScript in a second wave, and content that only exists client-side can be indexed late or not at all. We compare the raw HTML response against the rendered DOM to see exactly what Googlebot gets on first fetch, then close the gap with server-side rendering, pre-rendering or hydration fixes. AI crawlers barely render JavaScript at all, which makes this check more valuable every year.
Site migrations
URL-level redirect mapping
Replatforms, redesigns and domain moves are where sites lose years of equity in a weekend. We run URL-level redirect mapping, crawl staging against live before launch, and monitor indexation daily through the cutover. The full playbook, including rollback criteria, lives on our SEO migration services page.
International SEO and hreflang
Return tags · x-default · locale codes
Hreflang tells Google which language and regional version of a page to serve where. We audit for the failures that actually cause wrong-country rankings: missing return tags, invalid language-region codes, absent x-default and hreflang pointing at redirected or noindexed URLs. Then we set up monitoring so new templates cannot quietly break the mapping.
Run the 47-Point Technical SEO Audit Score
This is the same 47-point checklist we run on every new engagement, covering crawlability, indexation, rendering, speed, structure and international setup. Score your site honestly and you will know in ten minutes whether technical debt is holding your rankings back.
Every audit finding maps back to one of these points, so the deliverable you get is a prioritised fix list in the same order we would implement it. If you run an online store, pair the score with our technical SEO for ecommerce checklist, which reorders these checks for product and category page problems.
Crawl architecture
- sitemap.xml present + valid
- robots.txt configured correctly
- No orphan pages
- No infinite-redirect chains
- Internal link depth ≤ 4 clicks
- No duplicate canonicals
Indexation governance
- Canonical tags present site-wide
- No rogue noindex on key pages
- Parameter handling configured
- No thin/duplicate content patterns
- Hreflang annotations valid (if multi-region)
- Faceted nav controlled
Schema infrastructure
- Organization schema present
- BreadcrumbList present
- Article / Product schema where applicable
- FAQPage where applicable
- WebPage schema present
- Person schema (where applicable)
- Review schema (where applicable)
Core Web Vitals
- Mobile LCP < 2.5s
- INP < 200ms
- CLS < 0.1
- Desktop LCP < 2.0s
- No layout-shift on key templates
Site speed
- GZip / Brotli enabled
- HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
- Image lazy-load
- Fonts preconnected
- Render-blocking JS minimised
HTTPS + security
- HTTPS enforced site-wide
- HSTS configured
- Mixed-content resolved
- Security headers configured
International / multi-region
- Hreflang matches store-views
- x-default present
- Locale-pricing alignment
- Cross-region canonical strategy
Content + on-page
- Title tags unique site-wide
- Meta descriptions unique
- Single H1 per page
- Heading hierarchy clean
- Internal linking strategy in place
- Image alt-text coverage >80%
- dateModified on dated content
- Structured data on key page types
- Content depth per template
- No auto-generated boilerplate
Live Score
0 / 47 answered · severity-weighted
Issue Prevalence
Of 100 Audits We Run, This Is What We Find
Across our last 100+ technical SEO audits, the same critical failures appear with predictable frequency. Below is the prevalence data - the numbers competitors don't publish. Most accounts have at least 6 of these unaddressed at engagement start. The top three are usually fixable in week one.
Structured data gaps are among the most common finds, and platform defaults are usually the culprit - our Shopify structured data breakdown shows what ships by default and what you have to add.
Sources: Visionary client portfolio audits Q1 2026 (100+ accounts, mixed verticals EU + US). Severity-weighted; the top 3 are typically the highest-leverage week-one fixes.
Audit-to-Uplift
The Audit-to-Uplift Curve - One Engagement
All-time record for Google Ads leads · 3 months · technical SEO + paid in coordination
Rocketseed engaged Visionary with a Google Ads account dominated by spam leads and a site with significant technical SEO debt. The technical audit identified canonical inconsistency, hreflang errors across regional pages, schema gaps on key product pages, and Core Web Vitals failures across the mobile experience. Phase one rewrote the technical foundation. Phase two layered in paid Google Ads + Microsoft LinkedIn audience overlay. Three months in, the account hit an all-time record for Google Ads leads - and organic search had moved from a position previous engagements could not improve.
Redacted GSC organic clicks (indexed to 100 at audit completion)
Redacted GSC organic-click trend, indexed to 100 at audit completion. The technical-audit inflection point is typically visible in GSC within 2-4 weeks. Real client data, anonymised.
DIY vs Visionary
DIY Audit vs Visionary Audit - What You Actually Surface
| Dimension | DIY (Screaming Frog / Sitebulb / GSC) | Visionary audit |
|---|---|---|
| Crawl | ✓ - you can run it | ✓ - we run it |
| Issue identification | Tool flags issues automatically | Tool + senior judgment on which issues actually matter |
| Severity weighting | Generic 'high / medium / low' | Severity weighted by impact-on-revenue + crawl-budget cost |
| Schema validation | Validates if present | Validates + recommends additional schema where missing |
| Cross-system synthesis | Tool reports on isolated layers | Synthesised across layers (CWV ↔ Quality Score ↔ feed) |
| Implementation guidance | Generic recommendations | Specific to your platform (Shopify / WC / Magento / WP) |
| Prioritisation | Output is a list | Output is a 90-day roadmap with effort × impact ranking |
| Implementation | n/a | Visionary implements (or works with your dev team) |
DIY tools surface issues. They don't tell you which are urgent, which are cosmetic, or how to fix them on your platform. The audit is in the synthesis, not the crawl.
Tool Stack
The Tool Stack Behind Every Audit
Crawlers
- Screaming Frog (the workhorse)
- Sitebulb (visualisation + reporting)
- Lumar / DeepCrawl (enterprise scale)
Data + Analytics
- Google Search Console (core data source)
- Ahrefs Site Audit (third-party benchmark)
- Google Analytics 4 (impact measurement)
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools (cross-platform validation)
Schema + Validation
- Google Rich Results Test
- Schema.org Validator
- Manual JSON-LD QC
For a worked example of these tools applied to one platform, see the eight Shopify page speed levers we adjust to move Core Web Vitals.
Tool choice doesn't make an audit. Tool combination + senior judgment on what to extract from each does. We don't use one - we use what each is best at.
Pricing
Technical SEO Pricing: Included in the Retainer, Capped
Technical SEO is delivered inside our standard retainers: from £1,300 per month, capped at £2,500 per month. Technical work is where agency scope usually balloons, because every crawl finds something new. The cap ends that: your ceiling is agreed before the audit starts and it does not move.
For clients who also run paid search, Google Ads management is £850 per month or 10% of ad spend, whichever is greater, with a minimum ad spend of £1,000 per month, managed up to £250k+ per month.
You work directly with Chris Coussons, 15+ years in search, not a junior account handler.
| Engagement | Fee | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| SEO retainer: entry | From £1,300 / mo | 47-point audit, prioritised fix list, crawl and index control, Core Web Vitals work, verification in Search Console. |
| SEO retainer: cap | £2,500 / mo maximum | Agreed before the audit starts. Scope does not creep past the ceiling, however much the crawl finds. |
| Google Ads management | £850 / mo or 10% of spend | Whichever is greater. Minimum ad spend £1,000 per month, managed up to £250k+ per month. |
No contracts · senior delivery · performance terms available for proven companies
Last reviewed: by Chris Coussons, Founder.
AB Ellie: 19 #1 US Rankings - Including "Bridal Earrings" + "Wedding Earrings"
US bridal & wedding jewellery eCommerce brand on Shopify. Pre-engagement, head-term commercial keywords sat outside the top 30. Four months of full-stack eCommerce SEO - technical, collection pages, product pages, schema, content - produced 19 position #1 rankings, US-wide #1 for the two highest-volume category head terms, and an 800% year-on-year lift in non-branded organic clicks.
Position #1 rankings
"Bridal Earrings" + "Wedding Earrings"
YoY non-branded organic clicks
Engagement window
"Chris is a real master of SEO and PPC. I'll never forget the time he discovered what could have been a catastrophic SEO issue, prior to a new big website launch that would have cost the business £100,000s (that every other so-called SEO expert we'd engaged had missed)."
What's Included
What Our Expert SEO Services Include
Fully managed campaigns
Technical SEO is just one piece. Our managed service handles everything from strategy to execution, so your technical foundations translate into sustained ranking improvements.
Learn moreTechnical SEO
Crawlability, indexation, Core Web Vitals, and site architecture-we audit and fix the infrastructure that determines whether search engines can find and rank your content effectively.
Learn moreOn-page SEO
Once the technical foundation is solid, on-page optimisation ensures each page targets the right keywords with properly structured headings, meta data, and internal linking.
Learn moreContent strategy
Technical excellence needs content to rank for. We build content strategies that leverage your improved crawl efficiency and site speed to capture more organic traffic.
Learn moreLink building
Technical foundations make your link building more effective. Clean site architecture ensures link equity flows properly throughout your site, amplifying every backlink you earn.
Learn moreLocal SEO
Technical issues often disproportionately affect local rankings. We ensure your local landing pages, schema markup, and Google Business Profile are technically flawless.
Learn moreMobile SEO
With mobile-first indexing, mobile technical performance directly determines rankings. We optimise Core Web Vitals, responsive rendering, and mobile page speed.
Learn moreAI-powered SEO
We use AI-driven crawl analysis and log file insights to identify technical issues at scale, prioritising fixes by their actual impact on rankings and revenue.
Learn moreSEO migration
Platform migrations are the highest-risk technical SEO challenge. We've handled 50+ migrations with zero ranking drops through meticulous redirect mapping and testing.
Learn moreOur Process
How We Do Technical SEO
- 01
Comprehensive Audit
Full site crawl analysing speed, mobile performance, crawl efficiency, and indexation issues.
- 02
Core Web Vitals
Analyse and optimise LCP, INP, and CLS to meet Google's performance benchmarks.
- 03
Implementation
Technical fixes prioritised by revenue impact. Speed optimisation, schema markup, crawl fixes.
- 04
Monitor & Optimise
Ongoing monitoring to ensure improvements stick and new issues are caught early.
Why Us
Why Work With Visionary?
No Ranking Drops
Migration and technical work planned and tested to protect your existing rankings.
Data-Led Decisions
Every optimisation backed by actual performance data.
Senior Specialists
Led by people with 50+ site audits and migrations.
Ongoing Support
We don't hand off and disappear. Ongoing optimisation built in.
Our People
Meet Our Specialists
Chris Coussons
Founder & Senior SEO Specialist
Google Ads & SEO Specialist
10+ years. 50+ site audits and migrations completed.
FAQ
Common Questions
Start Here
Your Revenue. Our Obsession.
Tell us about your business and we'll show you exactly where the opportunities are - no obligation, no sales pitch.
■ Senior specialists only
■ No long-term contracts
■ Free audit included