SEO From Scratch — Part 3: Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the infrastructure that makes everything else work. You can write perfect content and build hundreds of links — but if search engines cannot crawl and index your pages correctly, none of it will rank. In 2026, technical SEO also determines your visibility in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Step 1 — Crawlability: Let Google In

The first thing Google does when it encounters your site is send a Googlebot crawler to read your pages. You must ensure nothing is accidentally blocking it.

Check Your robots.txt File

Find it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A correct robots.txt for a site that wants to be fully indexed looks like this:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

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

Step 2 — Create and Submit Your XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap lists every URL you want Google to index. It acts as a roadmap, helping Google find your content faster — especially new pages without many links pointing to them.

• WordPress: Rank Math and Yoast SEO plugins generate sitemaps automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
• Other platforms: Use xml-sitemaps.com to generate one manually for free.
• Validate your sitemap by opening the URL in a browser — it should display clean XML.
• Submit via GSC → Sitemaps → Enter URL → Submit. Check back in 48 hours to see indexed vs. discovered count.

Step 3 — HTTPS: Secure Your Site

HTTPS is a confirmed Google ranking factor since 2014. Chrome displays a "Not Secure" warning on HTTP sites, which destroys user trust and increases bounce rate. In 2026, there is no legitimate reason for any website to run on HTTP.

• Install a free SSL certificate via Let's Encrypt — most hosts (SiteGround, Hostinger, Cloudflare) provide this.
• Set up 301 redirects from all http:// URLs to https://.
• Ensure all URLs in your sitemap use https://.
• Verify the correct https:// version in Google Search Console.

Step 4 — Core Web Vitals (Google's Performance Signals)

Core Web Vitals are three performance metrics Google uses as ranking signals. They measure real-world user experience.

Metric	What It Measures	Good Score
LCP — Largest Contentful Paint	How fast the main content loads	Under 2.5 seconds
INP — Interaction to Next Paint	How quickly the page responds after a user interaction	Under 200ms
CLS — Cumulative Layout Shift	How much page elements move unexpectedly during loading	Under 0.1

Check your scores at pagespeed.web.dev and in GSC → Core Web Vitals. Always fix issues in GSC field data first — that is what Google uses for ranking.

How to Improve LCP

• Compress and resize all images — use WebP format instead of JPEG or PNG.
• Add loading="eager" to your hero image so it is not lazy-loaded.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) — Cloudflare offers a free tier.
• Enable server-side caching on your hosting.

How to Fix CLS

• Always specify width and height attributes on all image tags.
• Never insert ads or embeds that load asynchronously above existing content.
• Reserve space for web fonts to prevent text reflowing after load.

Step 5 — Mobile-First Indexing

Since 2023, Google uses exclusively the mobile version of your website for crawling, indexing, and ranking. If your mobile site is missing content that appears on desktop, your rankings will suffer even for desktop searches.

• Test your mobile experience at search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly.
• Use a responsive design — do not use a separate m.yourdomain.com mobile site.
• Ensure tap targets (buttons, links) are at least 48×48px.
• Do not use intrusive pop-ups that cover the main content on mobile.
• Ensure body font size is at least 16px on mobile.

Step 6 — URL Structure Best Practices

Clean, descriptive URLs help both users and search engines understand what a page is about before visiting it.

✅ Good URL	❌ Bad URL
niyajtech.com/blog/keyword-research-guide	niyajtech.com/?p=1234
niyajtech.com/services/web-design	niyajtech.com/page2/sub/article_v2_final

Rules: use hyphens (not underscores) to separate words, keep URLs short and descriptive, include your primary keyword, use lowercase only.