Blog / SEO and growth
Technical SEO basics every new website should ship with
Before content and links can work, search engines have to be able to read your site. This is the checklist we build into every launch.
10 October 2026, 3 minute read
A new website can look finished and still be nearly invisible to search engines. Most of the time the cause is technical, and it is far easier to get right at launch than to fix afterwards. This is the list we work through on every site we build.
Let search engines in
Check that the site is not blocking crawlers by mistake. A robots.txt file left over from development, or a noindex tag on live pages, will keep a site out of search no matter how good it is.
Add an XML sitemap that lists the pages you want found, and submit it in Google Search Console.
One clear title and description per page
Every page needs its own title and meta description that say what the page is about in plain words. The title is what people see in search results, so write it for them.
Use one main heading per page, and make sure it matches what the page actually delivers.
Address
nouasoft.com / expertise / custom-software-development
Title
Custom Software Development Company | Nouasoft
Description
Web apps, SaaS platforms and internal systems, built around how your business works and designed so your team will actually use them.
Speed, especially on phones
A large share of searches happen on a phone, often on a slow connection. Compress and size images properly, load only the code a page needs, and avoid layouts that jump around while loading.
Google measures these things as Core Web Vitals. Your visitors measure them too, in their own way.
Clean addresses and no dead ends
Use short, readable page addresses. Give each page a canonical address so duplicates do not compete with each other. When you move or rename a page, redirect the old address to the new one.
If the site is replacing an older one, map every old address before launch. This is the step most often skipped, and the one that loses the most traffic.
Structured data
Structured data is a small block of code that tells search engines what a page contains: an organisation, an article, a list of questions and answers. It can earn richer results, and it removes guesswork. Add it for the things your site really has.
Measure from the first day
Set up Search Console and an analytics tool before launch, not a month later. You want to see which pages are indexed, which searches bring people in, and where they leave. Without that, every later decision is a guess.
What technical SEO cannot do
Technical work makes a site readable and fast. It does not give search engines a reason to rank it. That comes from pages that answer what people are actually searching for, and from other sites choosing to link to them.
Think of the technical side as the foundation. It has to be right, and nobody visits a building for its foundation.
Nobody visits a building for its foundation.
The first weeks after launch
Check Search Console regularly in the first weeks. Look for pages that have not been indexed and for any errors it reports. Search for your own name and see what appears.
Fix what you find while the site is new and the list is short.
The launch checklist
Before a site goes live, we check that:
- robots.txt allows crawling, and there are no stray noindex tags
- An XML sitemap is submitted
- Every page has its own title and description
- Every page has one main heading
- Images are compressed and have text alternatives
- Pages work well on a phone
- Canonical addresses are set
- Old addresses redirect to new ones
- Structured data is added and tested
- Search Console and analytics are running
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