SEO is often treated as a layer of tweaks applied after a website launches: a few keywords here, some meta descriptions there. But the factors that most influence how a site performs in search—its structure, its speed, how clearly each page answers a question—are decided much earlier, in product and design decisions.
That’s why we treat technical SEO as product work.
Architecture is the foundation
Search engines understand your site the same way people do: by following links. A logical hierarchy, descriptive URLs and thoughtful internal linking help both visitors and crawlers find your most important pages quickly.
- Keep important pages within a few clicks of the homepage
- Group related content into clear sections
- Link between related pages with descriptive anchor text
- Avoid orphan pages that nothing links to
Speed is a feature
Google’s Core Web Vitals measure real-world loading, responsiveness and visual stability. A page is considered “good” when Largest Contentful Paint is 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint is 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift is 0.1 or less.
Hitting those targets is mostly about product choices: optimised images, careful font loading, less unnecessary JavaScript and layouts that reserve space for content before it loads.
Match every page to an intent
Each important page should answer one main question for one kind of searcher. Decide that intent before writing, then reflect it in the page title, the main heading, the structure and the content. Pages that try to rank for everything usually rank for nothing.
The best SEO is a website that’s fast, clear and genuinely useful. Search engines are just another visitor.
Help search engines understand you
Structured data (schema markup) describes your organisation, services, articles and FAQs in a format search engines can read, and can make your listings richer. Pair it with an up-to-date XML sitemap, correct canonical tags and clean redirects whenever URLs change.
Make SEO part of every release
The easiest way to protect search performance is to check it continuously. Add SEO checks to your quality assurance—titles, headings, links, page speed, structured data—and review Google Search Console regularly to catch issues early.
Key takeaways
- Plan site architecture and internal links early.
- Treat Core Web Vitals as product requirements.
- Give each page one clear search intent.
- Use structured data, sitemaps and canonicals correctly.
- Check SEO in every release, not once a year.
