Guide
What to know before hiring a technical SEO agency
Technical SEO gets sold a hundred different ways. Here's what it actually covers, and what to check before you pay for it.
What's included
Technical SEO, built into every project
Not a bolt-on audit product. This is what ships on every site we build, from the first commit.
- & indexability audit — robots.txt, , tags, chains
- (JSON-LD) across every page, validated against Google's Rich Results requirements
- optimization tuned for mobile — LCP, CLS, and INP
- Clean URL architecture, sitemaps, and correct hreflang setup for multi-language sites
- IndexNow integration for faster discovery of new and updated pages
- Migration handling — fixes that survive a platform or change
What technical SEO actually covers
covers everything that determines whether a search engine can find, , render, and correctly interpret a website in the first place, before a single word of content matters. That includes ( markup that tells a what an entity actually is), URL architecture, XML sitemaps, tags, and server-side rendering that doesn't depend on a crawler executing JavaScript correctly. , the page speed and stability metrics Google uses as a direct ranking signal, fall inside this same bucket, not in some separate performance category. It's a distinct discipline from content (keyword research, on-page copy) and off-page SEO (backlinks, digital PR): a site can have flawless copy and a strong backlink profile and still lose visibility if Google's crawler can't render the page or gets confused by broken canonical tags. In practice, technical SEO is the foundation the other two disciplines sit on top of, not an optional add-on to them.
is the infrastructure layer search engines rely on to , render, and understand a site: , clean URL architecture, sitemaps, tags, and rendering that works whether the executes JavaScript or not.
sit in this bucket too. Google uses page speed and stability as a ranking signal directly, so slow, janky pages are a problem before they're a content problem.
It's easy to confuse this with content (keyword research, on-page copy) or off-page SEO (backlinks, digital PR). Those matter, but they're a different discipline. A site can be perfectly optimized on-page and still lose visibility because Google can't or render it properly.
How to evaluate a technical SEO agency
Evaluating a agency comes down to four checks. First, watch for ranking guarantees: no agency controls Google's algorithm, so a promised position on page one is a sales tactic, not a technical claim, and should be treated as a warning sign rather than a selling point. Second, find out whether they implement fixes themselves or only hand over a report; a lot of "technical SEO audits" are a lengthy PDF of issues with nobody on the other end who can actually ship the fix, which just means hiring a second team to execute what the first one found. Third, check whether the agency's own site meets the standard they're selling: slow pages, missing , or poor search visibility on their own site tells you what to expect for yours. Fourth, look at how they report progress. A useful update names the specific change made and the measurable before-and-after, not a vague line about the account being "optimized."
Ranking guarantees are the clearest red flag. No agency controls Google's algorithm, so a promised position is a sales tactic, not a technical claim.
Ask whether they can implement fixes or only report them. Plenty of " audits" are a 40-page PDF of issues with no one on the other end who can actually ship the fix. You're left hiring a second team to execute what the first team found.
Check whether their own site holds up to the standard they're selling. A agency whose own site is slow, missing , or invisible in search results is telling you something about what you'd actually get.
Transparent reporting matters more than jargon. An update should name the actual change (for example, "fixed 12 broken tags on the blog templates") and the actual before-and-after in Search Console, not a status line that just says the account is "being optimized."
What to check before you hire one
Before hiring a provider, there are four practical questions worth answering upfront. Does the team actually work with your stack? Technical SEO on a React or Next.js app, a headless , or WordPress each requires different implementation details, and generic recommendations don't always translate into something your platform can actually execute. Is the engagement a one-time audit or ongoing work? New pages, new features, and platform updates keep introducing fresh technical issues, so a single fix-and-forget project rarely stays fixed for long. Who owns implementing the fixes afterward? If the agency only writes recommendations and your development team has to build them, get clear on how much of that gap the agency will actually close versus leave to you. And ask for real, verifiable examples: live sites you can visit and inspect yourself, with and rendering you can check directly, rather than anonymized screenshots of client results you can't verify.
Do they work with your actual stack? on a React/Next.js app, a headless , or a WordPress site all require different fixes. Generic advice doesn't always translate into a working implementation.
Is it a one-time audit or ongoing work? isn't a single fix-and-forget project; new pages, new features, and platform updates keep introducing new issues.
Who owns the fixes afterward? If the agency writes the recommendations but your dev team has to implement them, get clear on how much of that gap they'll actually close.
Ask for real, verifiable examples, not just anonymized "client results" screenshots, but sites you can visit and inspect yourself. We can point to two right now — Teoraspace and Seoul Homes' live site, both inspectable, and all, in the portfolio below.
How we handle technical SEO
We treat as a launch requirement built into every project from the first commit, not a standalone audit product sold separately afterward. , clean URLs, sitemaps, tags, and optimization ship with the site itself, not as a follow-up engagement once problems surface. Seoul Homes came to us running on WordPress, unable to fix underlying technical SEO issues within that platform's constraints, so we rebuilt it fully custom on a dedicated server and , letting the fixes actually hold. Teoraspace, an and AI-search visibility agency, hired us to build their own site to the same technical SEO standard they sell to their clients, so their site would double as proof rather than just a pitch. This site runs that same standard: structured data on every page, Core Web Vitals tuned for mobile, correctly configured hreflang, and IndexNow wired in for faster discovery, all visible if you view source yourself.
We don't sell as a standalone audit product. It's part of the build from the first commit on every project. , clean URLs, sitemaps, and are launch requirements, not a follow-up engagement.
Teoraspace, an and AI-search visibility agency, hired us specifically to build their own site to the same standard they sell to their clients, so their site would be the proof, not just the pitch.
Seoul Homes came to us running on WordPress, unable to fix underlying issues within that platform's constraints. We rebuilt it fully custom on a dedicated server and , which is what let the technical fixes actually stick.
This site runs the same standard we build for clients: across every page, optimized for mobile, hreflang set up correctly across languages, and IndexNow wired in for faster discovery. You're welcome to view source and check.
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Frequently asked questions
Do you offer one-off technical SEO audits?
Not as a standalone product. comes built into every site we build rather than sold separately. If you have an existing site, we're happy to review it as part of scoping a project.
What's actually included in technical SEO?
, , and indexability, clean URL structure, sitemaps, tags, plus correct hreflang implementation for multi-language sites.
Can you fix technical SEO on our existing site, or only new builds?
Both. Renewing an existing site is common, especially when the current platform can't support the technical fixes needed. That's often when organic traffic sees the biggest jump.
Do you guarantee rankings?
No, and any agency that does is not being straight with you. Nobody controls Google's algorithm. What we can guarantee is that the technical foundation is built correctly, which is the part actually within an agency's control.
How long before technical SEO fixes show up in rankings or traffic?
It depends on how much technical debt exists and how often Google recrawls the site, but structural fixes like and typically show up in Search Console within one to three months. We don't promise a fixed timeline, since nobody controls Google's schedule, including us.
Will I see exactly what's broken before I commit to anything?
Yes. Scoping a project includes a review of your current site's technical state, so you'll know what's actually wrong before deciding whether to move forward.