The Lazy Marketer's Guide To Technical SEO

Forbes

09-06-2025

Nick Zviadadze is the founder of MintSEO, an SEO and link-building agency.
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Technical SEO often sounds like a secret code only agencies can crack. They use terms like 'crawl budget optimization' and 'JavaScript rendering analysis,' making it seem like your website is doomed without their help. But here's the hard truth: If your website has fewer than 10,000 pages, most of that technical SEO work is just expensive busywork.
In this guide, I'll show you the bare essentials of technical SEO that matter and how to implement them. They can help you save time, money and sanity while focusing on what truly drives rankings: great content, solid backlinks and smart SEO strategy.
When you hear technical SEO, you might picture complex audits, custom scripts and consultants poring over your site for hours. It might sound like a never-ending science experiment—one that justifies their monthly fees. But these efforts could deliver minimal return on investment.
The reason is simple: Google's algorithms are incredibly good at indexing and understanding standard websites. If your site uses a platform like WordPress, Shopify or Webflow, you already have most of the technical groundwork baked in.
Many advanced technical strategies agencies promote are designed for enterprise-level websites with massive, dynamic architectures, such as sites with 100,000-plus pages, like Amazon or eBay.
However, if you're running a standard blog or small e-commerce store, your SEO challenges lie elsewhere. This means:
• Spending hours optimizing crawl budgets won't fix mediocre content.
• Adding advanced schema markup won't magically create backlinks.
• Fine-tuning JavaScript rendering won't help if your competitors publish better, more engaging content.
Technical SEO doesn't have to be complicated. Focusing on a few key essentials is enough to satisfy Google and get most websites some quick SEO wins.
Here are six simple steps to cover your technical SEO without wasting time or money:
An SSL certificate encrypts data exchanged between your website and its visitors, which keeps information like passwords and payment details safe. It's also a Google ranking factor, meaning a secure site (one starting with 'https://') will perform better than one without it.
Here's how you can add an SSL certificate to your website:
• Check with your hosting provider, as most offer SSL certificates for free or at a low cost.
• Use platforms like Let's Encrypt for a free SSL certificate if your host doesn't include one.
• Test your SSL status with tools like SSL Labs.
More than 60% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices, so your site needs to look and function perfectly on smaller screens. In addition, Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites, which means that you'll have better chances to rank well if you:
• Use a responsive theme that adjusts automatically to all screen sizes.
• Test your site on multiple devices or use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to identify usability issues.
• Fix problems like small buttons, overflowing images or unreadable text to improve mobile usability.
Slow-loading websites frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates. Google knows this and considers page speed an important ranking factor.
If you want to optimize your page speed, you need to:
• Compress images with tools like TinyPNG.
• Upgrade to a reliable hosting provider (avoid the cheapest options, as they often lead to poor performance).
• Install a caching plug-in (like WP Rocket) to reduce load times.
Your URLs should be easy to read, relevant and keyword-rich. This helps users and search engines to understand your content.
It's important to:
• Use short, descriptive URLs with primary keywords (like yourwebsite.com/seo-guide).
• Avoid long strings of random numbers, special characters or irrelevant details.
• Update outdated URLs using 301 redirects to maintain SEO value.
An XML sitemap helps search engines quickly discover and index your site's content. Without it, some of your pages might get overlooked.
If you want to create or optimize your XML sitemap, here's how:
• Use plug-ins like Yoast SEO or RankMath to generate an XML sitemap automatically.
• Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console to ensure proper indexing.
• Check your sitemap regularly to ensure all important pages are included.
The robots.txt file instructs search engine crawlers about which parts of your site to index and which to ignore. It prevents irrelevant or sensitive pages from showing up in search results.
Here's how to use robots.txt effectively:
• Create a robots.txt file using tools like Yoast SEO.
• Block unnecessary pages like /admin, /cart or thank-you pages.
• Use Google Search Console's robots.txt tester to ensure it's configured correctly.
Let's get real, the reason you're not ranking isn't technical SEO. It's everything else. Your content isn't engaging, your backlinks are nonexistent, and your keyword strategy is shooting for the moon instead of achievable wins.
Instead of spending thousands on technical SEO, a better idea is to focus on these SEO techniques:
• Fix your content. If it doesn't solve a problem or engage readers, rewrite it to include stats, examples and a clear call to action.
• Build quality backlinks. Forget spammy link farms and focus on guest posts, partnerships and creating link-worthy resources.
• Target the right keyword. Analyze competition and choose keywords you can realistically rank for, starting with long-tail keywords.
• Step up your game. Study your competitors. If they're publishing more insightful, detailed or visually appealing content, match and surpass them.
If you're stuck on page five of Google, the problem isn't technical SEO. Some of the most common SEO mistakes are a lack of content that resonates, links that build authority and a strategy grounded in reality.
Stop chasing shiny distractions and start focusing on what drives real results. The path to better rankings is simpler than you think.
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