Technical SEO.
The invisible architecture that determines whether your content is discovered, crawled, indexed, and ranked. Before a single word of content matters, the technical foundation must be flawless — Core Web Vitals passing, schema implemented, crawl paths optimized, and pages loading in under 2 seconds.
72% of first-page results use structured data. Pages with schema markup see 20-35% higher click-through rates. 53% of mobile users abandon sites loading over 3 seconds. These aren't opinions — they're the engineering constraints we build around.
Core Web Vitals.
Google uses these three metrics as official ranking signals. Sites that fail any one of them are penalized in mobile search results. We engineer all three into the architecture from day one.
INP replaced FID as the official responsiveness metric in March 2024 — measuring all user interactions, not just the first one.
LCP
Largest Contentful PaintMeasures how long it takes for the largest visible element (hero image, heading, video) to fully render on screen. This is the user's perception of 'the page has loaded.'
Most WordPress and template-based sites score 4-8 seconds on mobile LCP because every page load triggers PHP rendering, database queries, and unoptimized image loading. Even 'optimized' WordPress themes with caching plugins rarely break below 3 seconds consistently.
We pre-render pages at build time using Next.js Static Site Generation (SSG) or Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR). Pages are served as cached HTML from edge servers — no server-side computation per request. Images are automatically converted to WebP/AVIF, lazy-loaded with proper dimensions, and served from CDN. Result: consistent sub-2-second LCP globally.
INP
Interaction to Next PaintMeasures the delay between a user interaction (click, tap, key press) and the next visual update on screen. Replaced First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024 because it measures ALL interactions, not just the first one.
Heavy JavaScript frameworks, un-optimized event handlers, and third-party scripts (chat widgets, analytics tags, ad scripts) block the main thread. Users click a button and nothing happens for 300-500ms — the interface feels sluggish and broken.
React Server Components offload rendering to the server, reducing client-side JavaScript by 40-60%. We implement code splitting, dynamic imports, and web worker offloading for heavy computations. Third-party scripts are loaded asynchronously with intersection observer triggers. Every interactive element responds within 200ms.
CLS
Cumulative Layout ShiftMeasures how much visible content unexpectedly shifts during page load. Every time an image loads without dimensions, a font swaps in, or an ad banner injects itself above content — that's layout shift. Users lose their place, click the wrong thing, and leave.
Template sites with dynamically-injected ads, cookie banners, lazy-loaded images without explicit dimensions, and web font loading without fallback metrics cause severe layout shift. Most sites score 0.15-0.4 — well above the 0.1 threshold.
Every image and video element has explicit width and height attributes. Web fonts use CSS `font-display: swap` with matched fallback metrics. No injected content above the fold after initial render. Ad slots have reserved dimensions. Cookie banners use fixed positioning. Result: CLS consistently at or below 0.05.
Schema markup we implement.
Schema markup is the machine-readable layer that tells search engines and AI models exactly what your content represents. It powers rich results, AI citations, and knowledge graph entries.
Pages with schema see 20-35% higher click-through rates. Results with star ratings specifically see up to 35% higher CTR than those without.
Organization
Brand entity definition — name, logo, contact, social profiles. Establishes your brand as a known entity in Google's Knowledge Graph.
LocalBusiness
For businesses serving specific geographic areas. Powers the Google Business Profile card, map results, and local pack listings.
Article / BlogPosting
Content pages — publish dates, authors, images. Enhances listing with article rich results and feeds AI Overviews.
Product
E-commerce — pricing, availability, reviews. Powers product rich results with price, stock status, and star ratings directly in SERPs.
FAQ
Question-answer pairs directly in search results. Occupies significant SERP real estate and feeds AEO/voice search answers directly.
HowTo
Step-by-step instructions with images. Appears as expandable rich results in Google and feeds AI answer extraction.
BreadcrumbList
Navigation hierarchy displayed in search results. Replaces raw URLs with readable breadcrumbs, improving click-through rates.
WebSite + SearchAction
Enables sitelinks search box in branded searches. Users can search your site directly from Google's SERP.
Review / AggregateRating
Star ratings in SERPs. Pages with visible stars see up to 35% higher CTR compared to those without.
VideoObject
Video content — duration, thumbnail, description. Powers video rich results and video carousel features.
Every page must be findable.
If search engines can't crawl your site efficiently, even perfect content won't rank. We engineer the crawl path so every valuable page is discovered, indexed, and prioritized.
Dynamic XML Sitemaps
Auto-generated at build time with every content update. Submitted to both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Includes lastmod timestamps for crawl prioritization.
robots.txt Configuration
Precise directives for each crawler. Allow indexing of value pages, block admin routes, staging environments, and duplicate parameter URLs. Sitemap references for discovery.
Canonical Tags
Self-referencing canonicals on every page. Cross-domain canonicals for syndicated content. Prevents duplicate content penalties from URL parameters, pagination, and sort filters.
Internal Linking Topology
Strategic internal link architecture that distributes PageRank to priority pages. Breadcrumb navigation, contextual links within content, and programmatic related-content modules.
Hreflang for i18n
For multilingual sites — hreflang tags map each language variant so Google serves the correct version to each locale. Prevents cannibalization between language versions.
IndexNow Protocol
Instant indexing notifications sent to Bing and Yandex the moment content is published or updated. Pages appear in Bing search results within minutes, not days.
Crawl Budget Optimization
For large sites (1000+ pages) — we ensure search engine crawlers spend their limited budget on high-value pages, not admin panels, faceted navigation, or low-priority archives.
Orphan Page Detection
Pages with zero internal links are invisible to crawlers. We audit crawl paths and ensure every indexable page is reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage.
Our approach vs. the standard.
| Aspect | Orion Corps | Typical Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Page Rendering | Pre-rendered at build time, served as static HTML from edge CDN | Server renders every request, PHP/WordPress processes on each page view |
| Image Optimization | Auto-converted to WebP/AVIF, responsive srcsets, lazy-loaded with dimensions | Full-size JPGs, no dimension attributes, loaded all at once |
| JavaScript | Server Components reduce client JS by 40-60%, code-split per route | Entire jQuery/plugin bundle loaded on every page |
| Schema Markup | Programmatic JSON-LD generated from content data, validated automatically | Manual schema via WordPress plugin, often incomplete or outdated |
| Core Web Vitals | Engineered into the architecture — guaranteed 99+ PageSpeed | Afterthought — 'we'll add a caching plugin' |
| Indexing Speed | IndexNow + dynamic sitemaps = minutes to index | Wait for next crawl cycle — days to weeks |
How does your site score?
We'll run a comprehensive technical audit — Core Web Vitals, schema validation, crawl analysis, and indexing health across both Google and Bing. You'll get a prioritized list of exactly what to fix and in what order.