You can publish great content and still lose traffic if your site loads slowly, reacts sluggishly, or breaks during a redesign.
That is a technical problem, not a copy problem. The good news is that technical SEO has clear rules. If you know what to measure and how to ship changes with an offshore team, you can protect rankings and lift conversions in a few sprints.
This playbook shows you how to do that.
You will learn what Core Web Vitals are, how Google handles JavaScript sites, which rendering strategy to choose, and how to migrate without losing search equity. Everything is explained in plain English, with short tables you can act on and SOW-ready acceptance criteria. We also include visuals and videos to embed.
What is technical SEO?
SEO means helping search engines find, understand, and recommend your pages so the right people discover you.
Technical SEO is the part that makes your site discoverable and fast. Think of it as the foundation: how pages are built, how they load, and how search engines read them. It covers things like page speed, mobile readiness, redirects, sitemaps, and how JavaScript is served.
How Google processes pages in simple steps:
- Crawl: Google fetches a page.
- Render: Google runs your JavaScript to see the full HTML.
- Index: If the page looks useful and accessible, it is stored for search results.
Core Web Vitals (CWV): The Three Speed and Experience Checks
Core Web Vitals are real-world experience metrics that Google recommends site owners achieve for better search and happier users. They cover loading speed, interaction speed, and visual stability. Aim for “Good” scores at the 75th percentile of real users. In 2024, INP replaced FID as the interaction metric, so measure INP now.
Where to see your field data: Use the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. It shows how your pages perform for real users, not just in a lab.
CWV at a glance
| Metric | Plain-English meaning | A “Good” score (field, P75) | Quick wins that usually help |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | How fast the main content shows | ≤ 2.5 s | Preload the main image, compress it, improve server response, reduce render-blocking CSS and JS. |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | How fast the page responds to taps and clicks | ≤ 200 ms | Break up long JavaScript tasks, defer non-critical work, trim JS bundles. |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | How much the page jumps around while loading | ≤ 0.1 | Set fixed sizes for images and embeds, reserve space for ads, use font-loading strategies to prevent jumps. |
Monitor CWV on your Chrome Panel
JavaScript, frameworks, and SEO: how to ship pages Google can index
Many modern sites use frameworks like React, Next.js, Angular, or Vue. These rely on JavaScript to show content. Google can process JavaScript, but you must choose a rendering approach that gives search engines the important HTML right away.
Rendering strategies in one view
| Strategy | Use it for | Why it helps SEO | Watch-outs |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSG (Static Site Generation) | Blogs, docs, marketing pages | Sends full HTML instantly. Very fast and easy to index. | Rebuild times on very large sites. |
| SSR (Server-Side Rendering) | Product pages, location pages, content that must be fresh | Full HTML at request time. Search can crawl and index content without waiting for JS. | Needs caching and careful server sizing. |
| ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) | Pages that update often but not on every request | Mixes static speed with scheduled refresh. | Requires a good cache and fallback plan. |
| CSR (Client-Side Rendering) | Auth dashboards, app views that do not need to rank | Fine when the page is not for search. | Avoid for pages that should rank. |
Next.js documentation highlights SSG and SSR as SEO-friendly because they ship HTML that search engines can read immediately. Use CSR for pages that are not meant to rank.
What to avoid
Dynamic rendering (serving a special snapshot only to bots) is now called a workaround, not a recommended solution. Prefer SSR, SSG, or hybrid patterns. (Google for Developers)
Minimum setup for JavaScript SEO
- Important content present in the initial HTML for pages that should rank.
- <title>, meta tags, and structured data rendered on the server.
- Canonicals and hreflang in the HTML response.
- JS and CSS not blocked by robots.txt.
- Lazy loading that does not hide key content from Googlebot.
Migration without losing rankings
A migration is any big change to URLs, templates, platform, or domain. Done right, traffic holds steady and then grows. Done poorly, it drops. Use Google’s site move guidance, plan redirects in advance, and keep them long enough for signals to transfer. Use the Change of Address tool if you change domains.
Simple migration checklist
| Step | What you do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory | Export all indexable URLs. Map one-to-one redirects. | Every old URL has a single 301 to its new URL. No loops or chains. |
| Template parity | Match titles, meta, schema, and core content on new templates. | HTML parity confirmed for key types. No accidental noindex. |
| Launch redirects | Ship 301s. Test top paths. Update internal links and sitemaps. | Old URL → 301 → New URL → 200 for all key samples. |
| Tell Google | Verify properties, submit sitemaps. Use Change of Address for domain moves. | Properties verified. Sitemaps accepted. Tool submitted. |
| Monitor | Check 404s, crawl stats, rankings, conversions, and CWV. | No unexpected coverage drops. Errors fixed promptly. |
| Keep redirects | Maintain redirects for a long window. | Keep for about a year so signals transfer fully. |
How to Run Offshore SEO without chaos
Distributed teams win with clear owners, overlap hours, and simple acceptance criteria. Keep analysis with SEO, and implementation with engineering, with a pre-deploy checklist to prevent regressions.
Who owns what
| Task | SEO Lead | Frontend | Backend | Analytics | Project Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CWV audit and fix plan | Responsible | Consulted | Consulted | Consulted | Accountable |
| Rendering choice per template | Responsible | Accountable | Consulted | Consulted | Consulted |
| Titles, meta, schema in HTML | Responsible | Accountable | Consulted | Consulted | Consulted |
| Redirect map and testing | Responsible | Accountable | Accountable | Consulted | Consulted |
| Search Console and GA4 setup | Consulted | Consulted | Consulted | Accountable | Consulted |
| Release gates and rollback | Consulted | Accountable | Accountable | Consulted | Responsible |
Acceptance criteria you can paste into a SOW
- Field CWV (P75) on target templates meets: LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1.
- For indexable pages, the main content, title, meta, canonicals, and schema are present in the HTML response.
- Redirects are one-to-one 301s, with no loops or chains, and remain live for about a year after launch.
A 90-day technical ramp plan
Leaders want early proof. This cadence gives you signal quickly without burning the roadmap.
| Phase | Weeks | What ships | Proof of progress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundations | 0–2 | CWV audit, prioritize LCP image, trim JS, fix render-blocking. | Field CWV starts to improve in Search Console. JS payload drops. |
| First wins | 3–6 | Move key pages to SSG or SSR. Add schema server-side. Refresh sitemap. | Better crawl coverage and CTR on target pages. Fewer CLS issues. |
| Scale | 7–12 | Expand SSR/SSG to more templates. Ship redirect batches. Clean internal links. | Non-brand organic leads rise. LCP and INP hit targets. Errors trend down. |
FAQs
What is the simplest way to explain Core Web Vitals to my team?
They are three checks on real user experience: how fast the main content appears, how quickly the page reacts to input, and how stable the layout is while loading. Aim for LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 at the 75th percentile of real users. Track them in Search Console.
Do JavaScript sites rank?
Yes. Google can process JavaScript, but you should send important content in the initial HTML for pages that need to rank. That is why SSG or SSR are safe defaults for marketing and product pages. Use CSR for app views that are not meant to rank.
Is dynamic rendering still OK?
Treat it as a temporary workaround only. Google says it is not a recommended long-term solution. Prefer SSR, SSG, or hybrid patterns.
How long should we keep redirects after a migration?
Keep them for about a year so signals transfer fully to the new URLs. Use the Change of Address tool when moving to a new domain.
Where should we look each month to confirm progress?
Use the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console for field data, a GA4 landing-page report for organic traffic, and a short written note that explains what changed and what is next.
