Technical SEO Tips to Improve Crawlability and User Experience

Visibility is everything in digital marketing. Without proper access, crawling, and indexing by search engines, a beautifully designed website with valuable content will go unnoticed. This is where Technical SEO becomes critical. At BrandStory, we believe that strong technical foundations enhance search engine crawlability and, along with enhanced UX design, create websites that both Google and humans love.

This brings about a set of essential technical SEO advice to maximize crawlability and user experience of your website-Raising the level of ranking, engagement, and conversions.

What Is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to optimizing the entire infrastructure of a site to help search engines crawl, index, and render the content better. Whereas on-page SEO is the part of the process that deals with content and keywords, technical SEO makes sure your content is found and can be easily interpreted by the bots of any search engine.

A technically sound website causes Google to understand well what your pages are about and offers user experiences that are fast, free of errors, and responsive.

Why Crawlability and User Experience Matter

Crawlability means the ability of search engines to locate and make sense of every relevant page on your website.

User experience reflects how long visitors stay on your website, how many pages they view, and whether they convert.

Both of these factors govern your website's rank on SERPs and how well it is doing from a business perspective.

An XML sitemap actually tells the search engine what pages exist on your website and how often they are updated.

1. Optimize Your Site Architecture

Site structure affects both crawlability and user navigation. A flat architecture (where most pages are accessible within 3 clicks from the homepage) is ideal.

Tips:

• Use a clear and logical URL structure.
• Implement internal linking to guide bots and users to key pages.
• Create topic clusters with pillar pages and related blog posts.

Pro Tip: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit to visualize your site architecture and identify crawl issues.

2. Submit and Maintain XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap shows search engines which pages exist on your website and sometimes informs them how often they are updated.

Best Practices:

• You should submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Avoid including unimportant or duplicate pages in your sitemap for indexing.
• Keep it updated with any new or removed content.

A clean and accurate sitemap makes sure search engines crawl the most important pages of your website.

3. Fix Crawl Errors and Broken Links

Crawl errors (like 404 pages or server errors) can stop search engines from indexing your content and negatively affect user trust.

Fixes:

• Monitor crawl errors in Google Search Console.
• Redirect broken URLs to relevant pages using 301 redirects.
• Avoid redirect chains that delay page loading.

A clean crawl report signals a healthy site to search engines and improves user flow.

4. Leverage Robots.txt Wisely

The robots.txt file tells search engine bots which parts of the site they are allowed or disallowed to crawl.

What to do:

• Block irrelevant or sensitive pages (e.g., admin folders or duplicate content).
• Allow critical assets like CSS and JavaScript to be crawled.
• Test for any errors in the robots.txt file, using the Google Search Console.

An incorrectly configured robots.txt can block important pages or content from being indexed.

5. Improve Website Loading Speed

Page speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor and a key UX element. Slow sites lead to high bounce rates.

Tips to Improve Speed:

• Compress your images with the WebP format or any tool such as TinyPNG.
• Set up a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
• Minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
• Enable browser caching and lazy loading for media.

Use PageSpeed Insights by Google or GTmetrix to figure out where speed issues lie and fix them.

6. Ensure Mobile Friendliness

Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it basically employs the portable adaptation of content for ordering and positioning.

To optimize for mobile:

• Use responsive design across devices.
• Avoid intrusive interstitial popups that hinder access to your content.
• Do not constrain clients to zoom in to peruse content.
• Ensure navigation menus are mobile-friendly.

Test your site with Google Mobile-Friendly Test and promptly fix the reported issues.

7. Implement Secure HTTPS Protocol

Security is a top priority for both users and search engines. Google has confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal.

Checklist:

• Get an SSL certificate for your domain.
• Redirect all HTTP pages to HTTPS using 301 redirects.
• Update internal links to the secure version.
• Resolve mixed content errors (non-HTTPS elements on secure pages).

A secure site builds user trust and reduces bounce rates.

8. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Structured Data helps search engines better understand your content and deliver rich results like local pack, product snippet, people also search, site navigation, etc.

Implementation:

• Use JSON-LD format for your structured data (suggested by Google).
• Add schema for articles, products, reviews, local businesses, etc.
• Validate your schema using Google’s Rich Results Test tool.

Rich snippets can improve click-through rates (CTR) by making your listings more attractive.

9. Avoid Duplicate Content

Duplicate content confuses search engines and splits ranking signals, hurting SEO results.

Solutions:

• Use canonical tags to state the preferred version of the page.
• Never duplicate content on multiple URLs.
• Monitor for duplicates using tools like Siteliner or Copyscape.

A consistent, unique content strategy ensures your pages retain their ranking power.

10. Optimize for Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals consist of a set of metrics that Google applies to determine whether a real user had a good or bad experience.

Key Metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability.

How to Improve:

• Optimize images and videos.
• Use efficient coding practices.
• Defer non-critical JavaScript.

Keeping an eye on Core Web Vitals through Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights is a must so that you stay compliant with Google's indexing standards.

11. Avoid Orphan Pages

Orphaned pages are neglected. They are not linked from any other page within your site, making them hard to find by users and more likely to be ignored by search engines.

To Fix:

• Link orphaned pages from relevant internal content.
• Include them in your sitemap and navigation menus.
• Perform regular content audits to identify and connect isolated pages.

Every important page should be discoverable through at least one internal link.

12. Set Up Proper Redirects

Redirects are vital for maintaining SEO value when URLs change.

Tips:

• Use 301 redirects for permanent changes to pass link equity.
• Avoid 302 redirects unless the move is temporary.
• Don’t create redirect loops or chains.

Redirect mismanagement can lead to crawl waste and poor UX.

Final Thoughts

Technical SEO is more than just ticking boxes; it builds a site that search engines can understand and users will enjoy. When done right, technical SEO complements all your SEO efforts and serves as your foundation for growth.

BrandStory UAE believes that a balance between crawlability and user experience is the foundation of sustainable organic growth. Whether e-commerce service-based brands or blogs, focusing on the technical side of SEO can give you a huge competitive advantage.

Need Help with Technical SEO?

BrandStory is a full-service local SEO marketing agency that offers technical SEO audits, speed optimization, structured data implementation, and site architecture consulting to keep you informed about algorithm updates and industry trends.