Technical SEO for Alberta Businesses: What Matters and What Doesn’t
A plain-English technical SEO guide: crawling, indexing, site structure, Core Web Vitals, structured data, duplicates and AI crawlers, plus what you can safely ignore.
Technical SEO sounds intimidating, but for most small and mid-sized Alberta businesses it comes down to a handful of checks. Here’s what matters, in priority order, and what you can safely ignore.
1. Can search engines crawl your site?
Search engines discover pages by following links and reading your XML sitemap. Check that:
- Your
robots.txtisn’t blocking important sections - Your sitemap exists, lists only real pages you want indexed, and is submitted in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
- Important pages are linked from somewhere else on your site, not orphaned
2. Are your pages indexed?
Open Search Console → Indexing → Pages. This report shows which pages Google has indexed and why others aren’t. The statuses worth understanding:
- Crawled, currently not indexed: Google saw the page and chose not to index it, often because it’s thin or duplicative.
- Discovered, currently not indexed: Google knows the URL but hasn’t crawled it yet.
- Duplicate without user-selected canonical: Google found similar pages and picked one itself.
- Excluded by noindex tag: Usually intentional, occasionally a leftover from a staging site.
3. Is the structure clear?
A good structure groups related pages logically (for example, /services/seo/local-seo/), keeps important pages within a few clicks of the homepage, and uses breadcrumbs. If people can find things easily, search engines usually can too.
4. Is the site fast enough?
Google’s Core Web Vitals measure real-user experience. The “good” thresholds are:
| Metric | Measures | Good |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | Loading | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | Responsiveness | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | Visual stability | 0.1 or less |
The usual culprits are oversized images, too many third-party scripts (chat widgets, trackers, review badges), heavy fonts and bloated themes.
5. Does it work properly on mobile?
Google indexes the mobile version of your site. Make sure content, links and structured data are the same on mobile and desktop, text is readable without zooming, and buttons are easy to tap.
6. Is it secure?
Every page should load over HTTPS, and the HTTP version should redirect to it.
7. Have you added structured data?
Schema markup helps search engines and AI tools understand who you are and what’s on the page. Most businesses benefit from Organization or LocalBusiness, Service, BreadcrumbList and FAQPage markup. Validate it with Google’s Rich Results Test.
8. Are duplicates and redirects under control?
Use canonical tags so similar pages point to the main version. Redirect old URLs with 301s directly to their new home, avoiding chains of several hops. Pick one version of your domain (www or non-www) and redirect the other.
9. Can AI crawlers read your site?
AI search tools use their own crawlers. Make sure your robots.txt isn’t accidentally blocking search-focused bots like OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, and that key content is in the HTML rather than loaded only by JavaScript.
What you can safely ignore
- Meta keywords: Google hasn’t used them for many years.
- Keyword density: There’s no ideal percentage. Write naturally.
- Word count targets: Length should follow the topic, not a number.
- A perfect PageSpeed score: Aim for “good” Core Web Vitals from real users, not 100 in a lab test.
Where to start
Run through Search Console’s indexing and Core Web Vitals reports, then crawl your site with a tool like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) to find broken links, redirect chains and missing titles. If you’d rather have it done for you, a technical SEO audit ends with a short, prioritised list, not a 200-page export.