Technical SEO for Developers: A Checklist for 2025

Published on: by Dr. Talib

There's a misconception that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is purely a marketing task—stuffing keywords into blog posts and building backlinks. But in 2025, SEO is largely a technical discipline.

Google's bots are reading your code, not just your text. If your site is slow, broken, or hard to crawl, you won't rank, no matter how good your content is. Here is the developer's checklist for Technical SEO.

1. Core Web Vitals (The Big Three)

Google explicitly uses "Page Experience" as a ranking factor. This is measured by three metrics known as Core Web Vitals:

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Loading performance. The main content should load within 2.5 seconds.
  • FID (First Input Delay): Interactivity. The page should respond to a click within 100ms. (Note: Being replaced by INP - Interaction to Next Paint).
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Visual stability. Elements shouldn't jump around as the page loads.

Fix CLS: Always define width and height attributes on your <img> tags so the browser reserves space for them before they load.

2. Semantic HTML

We've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Using correct tags (<h1>, <article>, <nav>) helps Google understand the structure and hierarchy of your content.

3. Essential Meta Tags

Every page needs a specific set of tags in the <head>.

The Title Tag

The most important tag. It should be unique for every page and describe the content accurately.

<title>Page Title | Brand Name</title>

The Meta Description

This is the snippet that appears under your link in search results. It doesn't directly affect ranking, but it affects CTR (Click Through Rate).

<meta name="description" content="A compelling summary of the page content.">

The Viewport Tag

Essential for mobile responsiveness. Without this, Google will consider your site "not mobile-friendly."

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

4. Structured Data (JSON-LD)

Structured data is a way to explicitly tell Google what your content is. Is it a recipe? A product? A job posting? An article?

We use JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) for this.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Technical SEO for Developers",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Dr. Talib"
  }
}
</script>

5. Crawlability

If Google can't find your pages, it can't rank them.

  • robots.txt: A file at the root of your site that tells bots where they are allowed to go.
  • sitemap.xml: A map of every URL on your site that you want indexed. Submit this to Google Search Console.

6. Performance Optimization

Speed is a ranking factor. Make your site fast.

  • Minify CSS and JS: Remove whitespace and comments to reduce file size.
  • Compress Images: Use modern formats like WebP.
  • Lazy Load: Use loading="lazy" on images below the fold.

Conclusion

Technical SEO is about building a solid foundation. It ensures that your great content gets the attention it deserves. Start by running a Lighthouse audit on your site today and fixing the red warnings.