Your website looks great. The design is clean, the content is solid, and the photos are sharp. But traffic is flat, calls are slow, and the phone barely rings.
If this sounds familiar, the problem may not be what people can see. It may be what they cannot. Technical SEO in Los Angeles is often overlooked in digital marketing. Many local businesses lose rankings every day because of hidden issues.
This checklist walks through the most common website technical SEO issues that hold LA businesses back. Each issue is something a proper SEO audit in Los Angeles would spot. Fixing even a few can improve your site’s local search performance.
What Is Technical SEO, and Why Does It Matter for LA Businesses?
Technical SEO refers to the behind-the-scenes work that helps search engines like Google find, read, and rank your website correctly. It covers everything from page load speed and mobile usability to crawl errors and structured data. Think of it as the foundation your content strategy is built on.
On-page vs technical SEO is a common point of confusion. On-page SEO focuses on the words and content visible to readers, including targeted keywords, headings, and optimizing content. Technical SEO focuses on how the site is built and how well search engines can process it. Both matter, but technical issues often go unnoticed the longest.
A site with strong content and weak technical optimization will still struggle to rank. Google’s documentation on how Search works is clear.
Crawling, indexing, and rendering are all needed. These steps must happen before a site can rank. If your site blocks any of those steps, no amount of great content will fix it.
The Technical SEO Checklist Every LA Business Should Review
1. Crawl Errors and Google Indexing Problems
Search engines use bots to crawl and index your pages. If those bots run into errors, your pages may never appear in search results. This is one of the most common reasons why a website is not ranking in LA.
Common issues include:
- 404 errors (broken pages that lead nowhere)
- Blocked pages (pages accidentally blocked via robots.txt)
- Redirect chains (too many redirects stacked together, slowing crawl efficiency)
- Duplicate content (multiple URLs showing the same page, confusing search engines)
Use Google Search Console to check for Google indexing problems. Free and gives a direct look at how Google sees your site. Many local businesses find that whole blog posts or service pages were not indexed. This means those pages have no chance to rank.
A good Technical SEO audit in Los Angeles can quickly find these crawl errors. It can also show which pages need attention.
2. Core Web Vitals and Website Speed Optimization
Page load speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor. Core Web Vitals optimization is how Google measures real user experience on your site. They track three things:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How fast the main content loads after the page loads
- FID (First Input Delay): How fast the page responds to the first click or tap
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How stable the layout is as the page loads
A page that shifts around or takes five seconds to display content will rank lower and convert worse. Website speed optimization in Los Angeles is vital. Mobile users make up over half of all web traffic. They are often the least patient.
For businesses in competitive markets like LA, slow pages are a real liability. Core Web Vitals optimization for LA websites addresses each of these metrics with specific, targeted fixes rather than guesswork.
3. Mobile-Friendly Website SEO
Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it looks at the mobile version of your site when deciding how websites rank. A site that works fine on a desktop but breaks on a phone is being evaluated based on the broken version.
Check your mobile-friendly website SEO by looking for:
- Text that is too small to read without zooming
- Buttons placed too close together to tap accurately
- Content that extends beyond the screen edge
- Pop-ups that block the main content on mobile
The team at PX Media’s Pasadena Technical SEO services often finds mobile issues clients did not know about. These issues often start during a site redesign or plugin update. Fixing these builds trust with both users and search engines.
4. XML Sitemap Optimization
Your XML sitemap tells search engines which pages exist on your site and which ones matter most. When XML sitemaps are misconfigured, the results can be serious.
A single line of code in robots.txt can accidentally block your entire site from being crawled. A sitemap that includes broken or redirected URLs sends mixed signals and wastes crawl budget that could be spent on your best pages.
Every site should have a clean, updated XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console. The robots.txt file should be reviewed carefully to make sure it is helping, not hurting, your ability to rank.
5. Structured Data and Schema Markup
Structured data SEO in Los Angeles is about giving search engines more context. Code added to your site helps users and search engines understand what your content means, not just what it says. It powers rich results like star ratings, business hours, FAQs, and product prices appearing directly in search results.
For local businesses, schema markup can influence local search listings. It should include your business type, address, phone number, and service area. Businesses without it are leaving visibility on the table.
The Santa Monica SEO audit team often adds local business schema as one of the first fixes for new clients, because the impact on local search appearance is immediate and measurable.
6. URL Structure and Duplicate Content
A clean URL structure helps customers and search engines understand a page before they click it. URLs that are long, confusing, or stuffed with random characters are harder to crawl and harder to trust.
Duplicate content is a related problem. When the same content appears at multiple URLs, search engines are forced to choose which version to rank. Often, they choose the wrong one, or they split the ranking signals between both versions and neither ranks well.
Canonical tags solve this by telling search engines which URL is the official version. This is a common issue in a Las Vegas Technical SEO review. It often affects businesses that moved platforms or redesigned their site. It happens when they do not redirect old URLs properly.
7. Internal Linking and Content Strategy
Internal links help search engines understand the relationship between pages on your site. A page with no internal links to it is almost invisible to search engines. This can happen even if the content is strong and the keywords are well-placed.
A strong internal linking structure, combined with a clear content strategy, helps you:
- Connect related service and blog posts pages
- Use descriptive anchor text that reflects the page topic
- Distribute ranking authority to the pages that need it most
This is one of the simpler ways to improve your website without adding new content or rebuilding anything.
How to Fix SEO Errors on Your Website
Knowing what is wrong is the first step. Fixing it requires the right tools and some technical knowledge.
For business owners starting on their own, Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Screaming Frog are solid tools. Screaming Frog is free for up to 500 URLs. They help you optimize content and find technical issues.
For businesses that want the problems resolved properly and quickly, working with a specialist makes more sense. The San Diego Technical SEO team at PX Media delivers complete technical SEO audits and implementation. This lets business owners focus on running their business while we handle the technical work.
Fix the Foundation to Rank Higher
Most business owners assume their website is working correctly because it looks fine on screen. But a site that looks great and performs poorly in search has hidden technical problems. Crawl errors, slow load speed, mobile issues, missing structured data, and broken XML sitemaps are fixable. They are also invisible to the untrained eye.
If your Los Angeles business is not ranking where it should, a technical SEO audit in Los Angeles is the right place to start. Search engine optimization SEO works best when the technical foundation is solid. The full-service Technical SEO team in Los Angeles at PX Media runs detailed audits.
They provide clear, actionable fixes for every issue they find.
Reach out today to schedule your audit and learn what your website has been hiding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between on-page and technical SEO? On-page SEO covers the content and targeted keywords visible to readers, like headings, body text, and meta descriptions. Technical SEO covers the infrastructure of the site, including how it loads, how it is structured, and how search engines like Google crawl and index it. Both are necessary to rank higher in search results.
How do I know if my website has technical SEO issues? The most common signs are flat or declining organic traffic, pages not appearing in Google search results, slow page loads, and high bounce rates. Tools like Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights reveal specific issues. A professional LA technical SEO audit provides a complete picture.
Why is my Los Angeles business website not ranking? Many possible reasons exist, but technical issues are among the most common and the least visible.
Crawl errors can hurt your rankings. Low Core Web Vitals scores can also lower rankings. Missing structured data for SEO in Los Angeles can reduce visibility.
Mobile usability issues can push rankings down. Even strong content may not help.
How often should a business run a technical SEO audit? A full SEO audit in Los Angeles at least once per year is a solid baseline. Any major site change, like a redesign, platform move, or new plugin install, should trigger a follow-up audit. This helps catch issues introduced during the update.
Do technical SEO issues affect local search rankings? Yes.
The same technical factors that affect organic rankings also influence local searches. Page load speed, mobile-friendly SEO, structured data, and indexing all affect map results and nearby searches. The Pasadena Technical SEO specialists and Santa Monica SEO audit experts at PX Media address local and organic technical factors in every engagement.
Does PX Media offer technical SEO services outside Los Angeles? Yes. The team works with businesses across multiple markets, including Las Vegas Technical SEO and San Diego Technical SEO services, applying the same detailed audit process used for every new client.