Technical SEO is unglamorous: make the site readable, indexed and fast enough that content has a chance. This is the checklist we run before we touch a single keyword.
Crawlability
- robots.txt allows the pages you want indexed and blocks only what must be blocked — admin, search results, staging.
- No “noindex” left over from launch. Check the header, not just the meta tag: hosting panels sometimes inject
X-Robots-Tag. - Every important page is reachable by a normal link, not only by JavaScript or a sitemap.
- Return real status codes: 200 for live pages, 301 for permanent moves, 404 for gone.
Indexation
- One canonical URL per page, absolute, self-referencing.
- No duplicate versions of the homepage (http/https, www/non-www, trailing slash).
- The sitemap contains only canonical, indexable URLs and is referenced in robots.txt.
- Check Search Console → Pages after launch. “Discovered, currently not indexed” usually means the page is thin or duplicated.
On-page basics
- Unique title (roughly 15–60 characters) and description (roughly 70–160).
- One H1; headings in order; descriptive alt text on informative images.
- Internal links with meaningful anchor text.
- Structured data only where it matches visible content: Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, Article, BreadcrumbList.
Speed and stability
- Images: correct dimensions, WebP or AVIF, lazy load below the fold, explicit width and height.
- Fonts: self-host, subset, preload one weight; do not load five.
- JavaScript: defer, remove unused libraries, avoid layout-shifting embeds.
- Test on a throttled mobile connection, not just office Wi-Fi.
Mobile first
Most Indian traffic is mobile. Check that the phone number is tappable, the menu opens without JavaScript errors, tables do not overflow, and no image is taller than the screen.
Redirects and migrations
Map every old URL to its closest new equivalent with a single 301. No chains, no redirects to the homepage for unrelated pages. Keep the map in a spreadsheet so the next migration does not repeat the work.
Measurement
Verify the property in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit the sitemap. Watch impressions, clicks and indexed pages for eight weeks before drawing conclusions. Rankings move; indexed pages and enquiries are the numbers that decide whether the work is paying.