Technical SEO Is the One Discipline Where You Can Check Our Work
Most technical SEO claims cannot be verified by the person paying for them. Ours can. Every figure on this page was measured on this website, with tools anyone can run, and the before-and-after is in the commit history of the repository that builds it. That is a deliberately high bar to set for ourselves, and it is the only honest way to sell work whose results are invisible.
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Six layers, and they fail in order
Technical SEO is not a checklist, it is a stack — and the layers depend on each other in one direction. Work on a lower layer while an upper one is broken and the effort is wasted, which is why the order below is the order the work is actually done in.
- 1. Crawlable — can Googlebot fetch it at allrobots.txt, status codes, server response, redirect chains
- 2. Renderable — can it see the contentJavaScript rendering, blocked resources, lazy loading done wrong
- 3. Indexable — is it allowed in, and oncecanonicals, noindex, duplicates, parameters, pagination
- 4. Usable — does it work for a real visitorCore Web Vitals, mobile layout, interaction readiness
- 5. Understandable — is it structuredheadings, internal links, structured data, hreflang
- 6. Measurable — can you prove any of itSearch Console, analytics that survives a consent refusal
The dependency runs strictly downward. A page that is not crawlable cannot be indexed, and its Core Web Vitals are irrelevant. A page that is indexed twice under two URLs splits its own signals no matter how fast it is. This is why an agency that opens with speed optimisation on a site with an indexation fault is answering a question nobody asked.
Everything below was measured on this website
Layout shift first, because it is the clearest example of the difference between guessing and measuring. This site scored CLS 0.268 — a failing grade. The usual advice is to add width and height to images; every image here already had them. The actual cause was the web font swapping in and re-flowing text. The fix was to compute font metric overrides — size-adjust, ascent-override, descent-override — from the real font files rather than copying published values, and apply them across 104 declarations. CLS 0.268 → 0.002.
Then the main thread. Chrome’s own renderer counters, under PageSpeed’s mobile conditions, put the cost somewhere nobody looks: LayoutDuration 4,297 ms against 239 ms of style recalculation and 7 ms of JavaScript. The stylesheet was never the problem and neither was the script. The page was 44,292px tall on a phone, and the browser was computing geometry for all of it before painting the one screen a visitor sees. Skipping the off-screen layout took First Contentful Paint from 6,928 ms to 4,160 ms with layout shift unchanged.
Two forced reflows were found the same way and both were self-inflicted. A scroll handler read layout on every frame — 305 ms → 34 ms once it stopped. A second, in a carousel, read three layout properties and then wrote to the DOM, once per carousel, while the page was still parsing: PageSpeed attributed 99 ms to a single line. Separating the reads from the writes turned six forced layouts into one.
And the counter-example, which matters more than the wins. PageSpeed reported NO_LCP on this site for days. Four fixes were shipped for it and none worked. A direct probe of Chrome then showed the browser reporting Largest Contentful Paint perfectly well — and the error moved between mobile and desktop across runs of an unchanged page. It was lab instability, not a defect. Three of those four fixes changed working code for nothing, and knowing when to stop is the part of this discipline nobody advertises.
- ✓CLS 0.268 → 0.002 — Font metric overrides computed from the real font files. Every image already had width and height; that was never the cause.
- ✓FCP 6,928 → 4,160 ms — By not laying out 44,292px of page to paint the first 800. Measured before and after, layout shift unchanged.
- ✓Forced reflow 305 → 34 ms — A scroll handler reading layout every frame. A second instance cost 99 ms on one line during parsing.
- ✓1,601 KB of images removed — Twenty-two files re-encoded at identical dimensions. Nothing accepted that saved under 15%, and the largest reduction was checked by eye.
- ✓We stopped chasing NO_LCP — Four fixes, none of which worked, because the error was in the lab tool rather than the page. Knowing that is the job too.
The stylesheet was 2,175 rules and everyone assumed that was the problem. Chrome’s own counters said style matching cost 239 ms and layout cost 4,297. You cannot reason your way to that number. You have to read it.
What technical SEO actually involves
Six areas of work. The first three decide whether your pages exist as far as Google is concerned; the last three decide how well they do.
Crawling & Indexation
Status codes, redirect chains, robots rules, canonicals, parameters and pagination. The faults here are the ones that silently remove thousands of URLs from the index and are invisible in analytics because the traffic never arrived to be missed.
Rendering & JavaScript
Whether Google sees your content or an empty shell. Client-rendered sites, blocked resources and over-eager lazy loading all produce pages that look complete to you and blank to a crawler.
Core Web Vitals
LCP, CLS and INP, measured on your real field data rather than a single lab run. Lab tools disagree with each other; the field data is what Google actually uses, and the two frequently tell different stories.
Site Architecture & Internal Links
Which pages your own site treats as important, whether two of them compete for the same query, and whether anything is orphaned. The cheapest ranking gains on most sites are here and cost nothing to ship.
Structured Data & hreflang
Markup that matches what the page actually says, and language targeting that is reciprocal and complete. Get one hreflang link wrong and Google discards the entire set rather than the faulty entry.
Measurement That Survives
Search Console properly configured, analytics that still works after a visitor declines cookies, and reporting that separates what changed from what merely moved. Unmeasurable work is unprovable work.
The stack is the same. The faults are not
Every platform fails in its own characteristic way, and knowing which failure to look for first is most of the speed advantage an experienced technical audit has over a crawl report.
WordPress
Plugin sprawl generating duplicate URLs, taxonomy archives indexed by default, theme JavaScript blocking render, and pagination that quietly creates thousands of thin pages. The most common platform we see and the one with the most self-inflicted indexation faults.
Webflow
Clean output and fast hosting, with the usual faults in CMS collection URLs, missing canonical control on filtered views, and interactions that shift layout after paint.
Shopify & ecommerce
Faceted navigation and variant URLs multiplying the index, collection pagination, and product pages that go out of stock without a plan for what happens to the URL.
Squarespace & Wix
Less control over the technical layer, so the work concentrates on what is exposed: page structure, internal linking, image weight and whatever the platform will let you change about rendering.
Headless & custom builds
Where the expensive faults live. Client-side rendering that Google cannot see, hydration that shifts layout, and routing that produces two URLs for one page.
When technical SEO is the whole problem
Technical work is not always the answer, and we would rather say when it is not. These are the situations where it usually is.
Traffic fell after a release
The most reliably technical of all causes. A deployment shipped a canonical, a robots rule or a redirect that nobody reviewed, and the fall starts within days rather than gradually. Usually the fastest thing on this page to fix.
Pages are published but not indexed
Content is going out and nothing is arriving. Publishing into a site with an indexation fault is the most expensive mistake in SEO because the cost is invisible — the pages simply never enter the index and nobody notices for months.
Large ecommerce catalogues
Where faceted navigation, variants and pagination can generate more URLs than you have products. The index fills with near-duplicates and the pages you care about compete with your own.
JavaScript-heavy applications
React, Vue and headless builds where what a browser shows and what a crawler receives are different documents. Frequently the entire explanation for a site that reads beautifully and ranks for nothing.
Multi-market properties
One site serving several countries, competing with itself across en-GB and en-US. hreflang is unforgiving: every page in a set must link to every other including itself, reciprocally, or Google discards the set.
After a migration
The cheapest technical work and the most often skipped. Our own migration is the case study — 24 ranking URLs read by hand and mapped before anything was touched.
What clients say
Named clients, named companies — published with their permission.
“We’d been burned by two agencies before Ghalib Ashrafi. First proper technical audit we’d ever had — and rankings actually moved within two months.”
“Ghalib’s clear guidance has helped improve our website’s SEO performance.”
“We’re very thankful to Ghalib and his team for building a fully-functioning website for our business.”
“Working with Ghalib has been an outstanding decision for our company.”
More of them, in full, on our reviews page.
— Our Proprietary Methodology —
The Visibility Framework™, applied to technical SEO
The method is the same one every engagement here runs on. On technical work step one produces numbers rather than opinions, because the whole point is that the result can be checked.
Visibility Score™
We baseline crawlability, index coverage, rendering and Core Web Vitals from your own Search Console and field data — and record the numbers before anything is touched, so that what changes afterwards is provable rather than asserted.
Custom Strategy
A keyword and content roadmap scoped to your niche and budget — which pages to fix, which to build, and which terms are worth the money here.
Execution
Senior strategists implement technical fixes, content and links as one roadmap — no juniors, no outsourcing, no handoffs between departments.
Track & Improve™
Monthly reporting and continuous optimization — we re-test what’s working, cut what isn’t, and adjust as the market moves.
Honest, No-Nonsense Commitment
No one controls Google or AI search — so we'll never guarantee a #1 ranking. What we do guarantee: if your visibility score doesn't improve within 90 days, we keep working at no extra cost until it does.
Technical SEO pricing
Technical work scopes by how much debt the site is carrying, not by how many pages it has. A 40-page site built badly takes longer than a 4,000-page site built well. Prices below are USD; UK clients are quoted in GBP and Pakistani clients in PKR.
Starter
A low-risk way to test SEO with us on a single site.
- Crawl, indexation & Core Web Vitals baseline
- Fixes in dependency order
- Monthly reporting with before-and-after numbers
Growth
For sites where the technical debt is real and compounding.
- Everything in Starter, deeper execution
- Architecture, internal linking & structured data
- Rendering and JavaScript work
- Bi-weekly reporting calls
Enterprise
Large catalogues, multi-market properties and custom builds.
- Dedicated senior strategist
- hreflang & multi-market indexation
- Migration planning and post-launch monitoring
- Custom reporting dashboard
Technical work is usually the cheapest SEO to justify, because the results arrive fastest and are the easiest to prove. Get a free audit and we will tell you which tier fits — priced in your local currency.
What you’re actually committing to
Most agencies keep this in a contract you only see after the sales call. We would rather you knew now, because it is the question everyone asks second — right after the price.
- A 3-month initial term, then month to monthLong enough for the 90-day guarantee above to mean something, short enough that you are not trapped if it doesn’t work out. The wider industry standard is 6 to 12 months.
- 30 days’ notice to stopNo exit fee and no buy-out of the months you haven’t used. You leave when you decide to, not when the contract lets you.
- No setup or onboarding feeThe audit is free, and month one costs exactly what month two costs. Nothing is front-loaded.
- You own everythingAnalytics, Search Console, content, accounts and any tooling set up for you — all in your name from day one, and all still yours if we part ways.
- One fixed monthly feeAnything outside the agreed scope is quoted and approved by you before it starts. It never appears on an invoice as a surprise.
- Reporting written to be readWhat changed, what it moved and what is next — in plain English, at the cadence set out in your plan, not a 40-page export nobody opens.
These are the terms as they appear in the agreement itself — nothing here is softened for the website. The full wording lives in our terms and conditions, and you get the agreement to read before anything is signed or invoiced.
What we will and will not do
Technical SEO attracts a particular kind of overselling, because the client usually cannot check the work. So it is worth being specific about the limits rather than implying there are none.
We will not promise a Lighthouse score. A lab score is one page measured once under simulated conditions, and it disagrees with itself between runs — we watched this site report a metric error for days that turned out to be the tool rather than the page. What we will promise is field data measured before and after, because that is what Google actually uses and what your visitors actually experience.
We will not ship changes we cannot explain, and we will not touch a site without a way to roll back. Technical SEO is the only discipline here where a mistake can remove a site from the index in an afternoon, and the correct level of caution around that is higher than most agencies display.
And we will tell you when the technical work is done. There is always another thing that could be improved on any website ever built — that is why tool reports are so long. When the remaining items stop being worth their cost, we say so, rather than continuing to bill for a list that never ends.
- Numbers before and after. Recorded before anything is touched, so what changed is provable rather than claimed.
- No promised Lighthouse score. It is a lab measurement that disagrees with itself between runs. Field data is what counts.
- Nothing shipped without a rollback. This is the one discipline where a mistake can deindex a site in an afternoon.
- We will say when it is finished. The list of possible improvements is infinite. The list of worthwhile ones is not.
- You can check our work. Every figure on this page was measured on this site, with tools anyone can run.
Technical SEO questions, answered
Related SEO pages
Same service, different angle — by market, by discipline and by platform.
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