Technical SEO for Dublin
If you own a business in Dublin, you’ve probably heard about SEO – search engine optimisation.
But buried underneath content, keywords and backlinks is something just as important, and often
completely overlooked: technical SEO.
This page from Arrow Design is designed to explain, in plain English, what technical SEO actually is,
how it works, why it matters so much for businesses in Dublin and across Ireland, and why trusting Arrow Design
to manage your technical SEO can give you a real competitive advantage online.
We won’t just talk about theory. We’ll walk through the practical steps, common problems we see
on Irish websites, and how we fix them – from crawl errors and slow loading pages to messy URL structures,
broken internal links, missing schema and more. By the end, you’ll understand exactly what you’re getting
when Arrow Design takes care of your technical SEO, and how it helps your website GET Business.
1. What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the part of search engine optimisation that focuses on the behind-the-scenes
foundations of your website rather than the words on the page. While content SEO looks at what you say,
technical SEO looks at how your website is built, how quickly it loads, how easily it can be crawled,
understood and indexed by search engines, and how smoothly it works for visitors on different devices.
A simple way to think about it:
- Content SEO is like what’s inside your shop – your products, your displays, your sales pitch.
- Technical SEO is the structure of the building – the entrance, the lighting, the layout, the safety,
the signage, even the car park and access routes.
If the technical side is poor, it doesn’t really matter how good your content is. If search engines can’t
access your pages properly, or if your site is painfully slow on mobile, or if links keep breaking, your
rankings will struggle and users will leave.
Technical SEO includes (among many other things):
- Ensuring your website can be crawled and indexed correctly.
- Using a clean, logical site structure and URL hierarchy.
- Fixing broken links, redirect chains and server errors (404, 500, etc.).
- Improving site speed and performance so pages load quickly.
- Making sure your site is fully mobile friendly and responsive.
- Using HTTPS and security best practices.
- Implementing structured data (schema) so search engines better understand your content.
- Keeping XML sitemaps and robots.txt correctly configured.
- Managing indexation so only the right pages appear in search results.
None of these things are glamorous. They don’t jump out at you when you glance at a page. But together,
they create a fast, stable, search-friendly website that both people and search engines trust.
At Arrow Design, we don’t treat technical SEO as a one-off box-ticking exercise. We see it as the
foundation of everything else we do with your website – design, development, content, and marketing.
2. Why Technical SEO Matters for Dublin Businesses
Dublin is a competitive market. Whether you’re a small local tradesperson, a professional services firm, a
hospitality business or an e-commerce store, you’re not just competing with businesses across Ireland – you’re
often competing with UK and international websites as well.
A strong technical SEO setup helps you:
- Appear more often when people in Dublin search for your services.
- Outperform competitors whose websites are slower or technically weaker.
- Convert more visitors into enquiries because your pages load smoothly and feel trustworthy.
- Protect your rankings against algorithm updates that reward fast, secure, user-friendly sites.
Think about how people in Dublin look for services today: they’re on mobile, often on the move, sometimes on
weaker connections, and they expect pages to load fast. If your site hesitates, they tap back and pick
someone else. Technical SEO is what keeps that from happening.
Some reasons technical SEO is particularly important for Dublin-based businesses:
-
Local intent: Searches like “plumber Dublin 8”, “solicitor in Sandyford” or “web design in Dublin”
tend to show a mix of map results and organic results. If your technical SEO is poor, Google is less likely
to trust your site enough to show it prominently.
-
Competition from larger brands: Big brands and national chains usually invest heavily in
technical SEO. To compete, Dublin SMEs need a solid technical foundation as well.
-
Mobile-first world: Many Dublin users browse on mobile data. A slow, unoptimised site means
higher bounce rates and fewer leads.
-
Cost of ad spend: Technical SEO can support your PPC and social campaigns. When your landing
pages are fast and technically sound, conversions improve, and your cost per lead can drop.
The bottom line: if you want to be discovered, trusted and chosen online in Dublin, technical SEO isn’t optional.
It’s part of the essential groundwork. Arrow Design’s role is to make that groundwork solid – and keep it that way.
3. How Search Engines See Your Website
To understand technical SEO, it helps to know, at a basic level, how search engines like Google actually work.
When you type a query into Google, it isn’t searching the live web in real time – it’s searching its own index,
a massive database of pages it has already crawled and stored.
The process normally looks like this:
-
Crawling – Automated bots (often called crawlers or spiders) follow links across the web,
discovering new pages and revisiting old ones.
-
Rendering & Understanding – The crawler “reads” the page, including HTML, text,
images and (where possible) JavaScript, to understand what’s on it and how it’s laid out.
-
Indexing – If the page is allowed (i.e. not blocked by robots.txt or meta tags) and appears valuable,
the search engine adds it to its index with information about its content, topic, language, location and more.
-
Ranking – When someone searches for something, the search engine pulls relevant pages from its
index and orders them based on hundreds of factors: relevance, authority, freshness, user signals, and
technical quality.
Technical SEO focuses mainly on the first three stages: crawling, rendering and indexing.
If anything goes wrong here, your content may never get a fair chance to rank – even if the writing is excellent.
Common technical problems that interfere with this process include:
- Robots.txt rules that accidentally block important sections of the site.
- “Noindex” tags on pages that should be visible in search results.
- Slow page loading times that cause crawlers to give up early.
- Complex JavaScript that makes key content hard to render.
- Infinite URL variations or faceted filters that waste crawl budget.
- Multiple duplicate URLs for the same content with no proper canonicals.
Arrow Design’s technical SEO work makes sure that:
- Search engines can find the right pages.
- They can read and understand those pages clearly.
- They are given the right signals about which pages to index and rank.
Once those foundations are in place, your content and link-building efforts have a much better chance of delivering
real results – more traffic, more enquiries, more business.
4. The Core Pillars of Technical SEO
Technical SEO covers a wide range of checks, fixes and ongoing improvements. At Arrow Design, we group them into
several key pillars so that you can see exactly what’s being worked on and why it matters.
4.1 Crawlability & Indexation
If search engines can’t crawl or index your pages properly, nothing else matters. Arrow Design starts with
ensuring that your website is fully accessible to search bots and that only the right pages are being pushed
into the index.
We typically look at:
- Robots.txt – Are you accidentally blocking important content folders or file types?
- Meta robots tags – Are pages that should be indexable set to “noindex” or “nofollow”?
- XML sitemaps – Are they up to date, accurate, and submitted to search consoles?
- Crawl errors – Are there broken links, server errors or redirect loops slowing crawlers?
- Crawl budget waste – Are unnecessary filters, search result pages or duplicate URLs getting crawled?
We fix issues such as:
- Incorrect blocking of CSS/JS that search engines need to render your pages.
- Old test or staging URLs accidentally left open to crawlers.
- Auto-generated tag pages that add no value but flood your index.
- Thin or duplicate pages that dilute your site’s authority.
The result is a website where search engines know exactly what to crawl, what to index and what to ignore.
That clarity often leads to better visibility for your most important pages.
4.2 Site Architecture & URL Structure
Your site’s architecture is the way pages are organised and linked together. A good structure makes it easy
for both users and search engines to move from broad topics to specific details in a logical way.
Arrow Design pays particular attention to:
- Hierarchy: Do you have clear categories, subcategories and detail pages?
- URL structure: Are URLs short, descriptive and consistent (e.g. /services/web-design-dublin/)?
- Click depth: How many clicks does it take to reach key pages from the homepage?
- Breadcrumbs: Do users (and search engines) see where they are within the site?
- Internal link patterns: Are high-value pages getting enough internal links?
Clean architecture helps search engines:
- Understand which pages are most important.
- Find and index new or updated content quickly.
- See the thematic relationships between pages.
For you, it means easier navigation, more intuitive menus and a better user experience – all of which
support higher conversion rates.
4.3 Internal Linking & Navigation
Internal links – the links from one page on your site to another – are one of the most underrated tools in
technical SEO. They tell search engines which pages matter most, spread authority and help users find what
they’re looking for.
Arrow Design analyses:
- Which pages are acting as hubs within your site.
- Whether important service pages are buried or clearly linked.
- Anchor text (the clickable text used for links) and how descriptive it is.
- Navigation menus, footer links and contextual links in content.
We then:
- Reinforce your key service and location pages with strategic internal links.
- Remove dead-end pages where users and crawlers get stuck.
- Ensure duplicate or near-duplicate pages don’t split link equity.
The goal is a website where authority flows naturally to your most important pages – for example,
“technical SEO Dublin”, “web design Dublin”, or key local service areas – which supports stronger rankings.
4.4 Site Speed & Performance
Fast loading times are critical. Users expect pages to appear almost instantly, especially on mobile.
Slow pages frustrate visitors and send negative signals to search engines.
Arrow Design evaluates and improves:
- Page weight: Are images too large? Is there unnecessary code?
- Caching: Are you using browser caching or server-side caching?
- Hosting performance: Is your server set up correctly and located appropriately?
- Code efficiency: Is CSS and JavaScript minified, combined or deferred where appropriate?
- Third-party scripts: Are external scripts (analytics, tracking, widgets) slowing things down?
We use a combination of real-user metrics and lab tools to identify bottlenecks and then
implement practical fixes that keep your site fast and responsive.
For a Dublin business, faster pages can mean:
- More enquiries from people browsing on mobile data.
- Improved conversion rates from paid and organic traffic.
- Better overall user satisfaction and repeat visits.
4.5 Mobile Friendliness & Responsive Design
A large percentage of Dublin users access websites on their phones. If your site isn’t properly responsive,
or if the mobile version is stripped-down, broken or slow, you will lose business.
Because Arrow Design is both a web design and SEO company, we don’t treat mobile as an afterthought.
We ensure that:
- Your layout adapts cleanly to different screen sizes.
- Fonts, buttons and forms are comfortably usable on touchscreens.
- Key content and calls-to-action are visible without endless scrolling or pinching.
- Menus and navigation are easy to use on smaller devices.
Technical SEO checks for mobile also include making sure:
- The mobile version isn’t missing important content found on desktop.
- Scripts and images are optimised for mobile bandwidth.
- Pop-ups, banners or cookie notices don’t block content or cause usability issues.
The aim is a consistent experience: whether someone in Dublin visits your site on a laptop at work or
on their phone on the Luas, they should get a smooth, professional impression.
4.6 HTTPS & Security
Security is not just a user trust factor; it’s also a technical signal. Modern websites are expected to
run over HTTPS, showing the padlock in the browser, to encrypt data and protect visitors.
Arrow Design checks:
- Whether your SSL certificate is correctly installed and up to date.
- Whether all versions of your site (http/https, www/non-www) redirect correctly to a single preferred version.
- Whether mixed content errors (secure pages linking insecure resources) are present.
We also review basic security best practices such as:
- Securing admin areas and login pages.
- Using up-to-date plugins, themes and platforms.
- Managing redirects safely so they do not create loops or chains.
For Dublin businesses handling enquiries, bookings or online payments, a secure, technically sound site
is essential for both compliance and customer confidence.
4.7 Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data is extra code added to your pages to help search engines understand the type of content
they’re looking at – for example, whether something is a local business, a product, an FAQ, a review or an event.
Arrow Design can add and maintain schema markup such as:
- LocalBusiness schema for Dublin-based companies.
- FAQ schema for common questions and answers.
- Product schema for e-commerce sites.
- Service schema for professional services.
- Breadcrumb schema to describe site structure.
While structured data doesn’t guarantee special “rich” results, it helps search engines form a clearer picture
of your business, which supports better relevance and visibility over time.
4.8 Ongoing Monitoring & Technical Maintenance
Technical SEO is not a once-off task. Websites evolve – new pages are added, plugins are updated, themes change,
hosting environments get tweaked. Each change can introduce new issues.
Arrow Design offers ongoing monitoring and maintenance, including:
- Regular health checks for crawl errors and indexation issues.
- Monitoring page speed and performance over time.
- Spotting sudden drops in traffic that may indicate a technical problem.
- Checking redirects after site changes or migrations.
- Keeping sitemaps and key configuration files up to date.
This continuous care means you’re less likely to suffer long-term losses from a simple misconfiguration
or overlooked error.
5. Arrow Design’s Technical SEO Process
At Arrow Design, we tailor our technical SEO work to each website, but our overall process follows a proven pattern.
This ensures nothing important is missed and that you always know what’s happening and why.
5.1 Discovery & Objectives
We start by understanding your business:
- What do you sell or offer?
- Where are your customers (Dublin only, Ireland-wide, international)?
- Which services or products are most profitable or important?
- What kind of enquiries or conversions matter most – phone calls, forms, bookings, sales?
This helps us prioritise technical changes that directly support your goals. There is no point
spending hours optimising pages that make no difference to your bottom line.
5.2 Technical SEO Audit
Next, we carry out a detailed technical SEO audit of your site. This involves:
- Crawling your site to map URLs, status codes, content types and internal linking.
- Checking robots.txt, sitemaps and key meta tags.
- Reviewing indexation patterns – what is and isn’t appearing in search results.
- Assessing site speed and performance on desktop and mobile.
- Checking mobile usability and responsive behaviour.
- Reviewing redirect rules, canonical tags and duplicate content.
- Looking at structured data, security and basic accessibility factors.
From this, we create a prioritised list of issues, ordered by impact and effort. You’ll receive this in
clear language, not just technical jargon.
5.3 Implementation of Fixes
Once you’re happy with the plan, Arrow Design begins implementing the agreed fixes.
Because we are also developers, we can handle the majority of changes ourselves, including:
- Editing templates and code on WordPress and other CMS platforms.
- Rebuilding parts of the site architecture where necessary.
- Adjusting hosting or caching configurations to improve speed.
- Setting up redirects and fixing broken links.
- Implementing structured data and adjusting meta tags.
Where a change needs your input (for example, removing certain sections, consolidating content or adjusting
product/category structures), we explain the options and help you choose the approach that best matches
your business.
5.4 Testing & Verification
After making technical changes, we don’t just assume everything is perfect. We test:
- How the site crawls after changes.
- Whether key pages are indexable and correctly tagged.
- That redirects work as expected.
- That performance metrics have improved, not worsened.
- That the user experience on desktop and mobile remains smooth.
This testing phase helps catch any side-effects early and ensures you get the benefits you’re paying for.
5.5 Monitoring & Ongoing Improvements
For clients who want ongoing technical SEO support, Arrow Design can provide:
- Regular technical check-ups.
- Reporting on issues and improvements.
- Support for site updates, new sections or redesigns.
- Advice when planning new features that might have technical SEO implications.
This partnership approach means your website doesn’t just launch in good shape – it stays healthy and
competitive as search and user expectations evolve.
6. The Benefits of Choosing Arrow Design for Technical SEO
There are many agencies and freelancers offering SEO, but not all SEO services are the same.
Here’s why Dublin businesses choose Arrow Design to handle their technical SEO.
6.1 Web Design, Development & SEO Under One Roof
Technical SEO lives at the intersection of code, design and marketing. Because Arrow Design builds
and maintains websites as well as optimising them, we understand how these areas work together.
That means:
- We can diagnose technical issues more accurately.
- We can fix problems directly in the code or CMS, not just tell you what to ask a developer.
- We can design and build new sections of your site with technical SEO in mind from day one.
6.2 Local Knowledge of the Dublin Market
Arrow Design is based in Dublin and works with local businesses of all sizes. We understand how
Dublin customers search, the kinds of phrases they use, and the level of competition in many local niches.
When we work on your technical SEO, we combine solid best practices with a practical view of your local market.
We know that for many Dublin businesses, the goal isn’t global traffic – it’s getting the right local visitors
who are ready to call, email, book or buy.
6.3 Clear, Plain-English Explanations
Technical SEO is full of jargon: canonicalisation, crawl budget, rendering, robots directives, schema markup…
It can be confusing and overwhelming.
Arrow Design keeps things simple. We explain:
- What the issue is.
- Why it matters to your business (not just to Google).
- What we’re going to do about it.
- What outcome you can expect.
You stay in control and informed, without needing to become a technical expert yourself.
6.4 Flexible Support – From Audits to Ongoing Management
Some clients come to us for a once-off technical SEO audit and clean-up. Others prefer a long-term partnership
where we proactively monitor and adjust their site over months and years.
Arrow Design is happy to work either way:
- One-off project: Detailed technical audit, implementation of agreed fixes, and handover.
- Ongoing service: Continuous monitoring, regular reports and incremental improvements.
6.5 Focus on Results, Not Just Reports
A technical SEO project should not end with a thick PDF that sits in your inbox. Arrow Design’s focus
is on implementation and impact. We care about:
- Your key pages being properly indexed and visible.
- Improvements in ranking for your priority search terms.
- Better user behaviour: lower bounce rates, more time on site, more clicks to important pages.
- Ultimately: more enquiries, bookings or sales.
Everything we do on the technical side is tied back to your real-world business objectives.
7. Typical Technical SEO Issues We Fix for Dublin Websites
To make all of this more concrete, here are some typical issues we frequently encounter on Dublin business
websites – and how Arrow Design usually approaches them.
7.1 Slow, Image-Heavy Homepages
Many sites have large banner images, sliders and background videos that look impressive but take far too long
to load. On mobile connections, this can be disastrous.
Arrow Design typically:
- Compresses and resizes images appropriately.
- Implements lazy loading where suitable.
- Removes unnecessary sliders or heavy scripts.
- Optimises the order in which resources load.
The result is a homepage that still looks great but loads quickly enough to keep visitors engaged.
7.2 Confusing Service Structures
Some businesses have grown their sites over years, adding new services in a patchwork way.
The result is URLs like “/services-2/our-services-new/” and menus that are difficult to navigate.
Arrow Design:
- Maps out all current URLs and identifies duplicates or outdated pages.
- Designs a clear, logical hierarchy for services and locations.
- Implements redirects from old URLs to new, clean ones.
- Updates menus, breadcrumbs and internal links to match the new structure.
Search engines and users both benefit from this cleanup, and your most important services become easier to find.
7.3 Old HTTP URLs and Mixed Content
Older sites sometimes moved to HTTPS without a full clean-up. Some internal links still point to http URLs,
or images and scripts are loaded insecurely, causing browser warnings.
Arrow Design:
- Ensures all versions of the site redirect correctly to a single HTTPS version.
- Fixes internal links that still reference http URLs.
- Updates template files and databases where necessary.
- Checks and resolves mixed content warnings.
7.4 Duplicate or Thin Location Pages
Some Dublin businesses create multiple similar pages for different areas – for example,
“plumber-dublin-1”, “plumber-dublin-2”, etc. – with nearly identical content. This can lead
to duplication and confusion for search engines.
Arrow Design:
- Audits location pages to identify duplication.
- Consolidates where appropriate, creating more comprehensive pages.
- Adds genuine local information where separate pages are justified.
- Uses internal linking and structured data to support local relevance.
7.5 Staging Sites Accidentally Indexed
It’s surprisingly common for a test or staging version of a site to be left open to search engines.
This can split your visibility and cause confusion.
Arrow Design:
- Identifies duplicate versions of the site in the index.
- Blocks staging environments from being indexed.
- Uses proper redirects or authentication where necessary.
Cleaning this up helps consolidate your authority into a single, correct version of the site.
8. Technical SEO FAQs (Especially for Dublin Businesses)
8.1 Do I really need technical SEO if I already have good content?
Yes. Good content is vital, but if technical issues block search engines from crawling, indexing or understanding
that content, you won’t get the full benefit. Technical SEO and content SEO work hand-in-hand.
Think of technical SEO as the foundation that supports everything else.
8.2 How do I know if my site has technical SEO problems?
Common signs include:
- Your site feels slow, especially on mobile.
- Pages drop out of search results for no obvious reason.
- You see a lot of 404 errors or strange URLs.
- Search Console or similar tools show warnings and errors.
- Visitors complain about broken links or awkward navigation.
The best way to be sure is to have a structured technical SEO audit carried out. Arrow Design can perform this
for your site and explain the findings clearly.
8.3 Is technical SEO a one-time job or ongoing?
There are two parts:
- Initial clean-up: Fixing existing issues, improving structure, speed and indexation.
- Ongoing care: Monitoring and adjusting as new content is added, systems are updated and
search behaviour evolves.
For many Dublin businesses, a thorough initial project followed by light ongoing monitoring works well.
8.4 Will technical SEO alone get me to number one in Google?
Technical SEO on its own won’t magically guarantee the top position, but without it, you may never get close.
Strong rankings usually come from a combination of:
- Solid technical foundations.
- Relevant, high-quality content targeting the right search terms.
- Good user experience and engagement.
- Authority signals such as links and brand recognition.
Technical SEO ensures your site is in the best possible shape to benefit from all your other marketing efforts.
8.5 How long does it take to see results from technical SEO?
It depends on the size of your site and the severity of the issues. Some improvements – especially around site
speed and fixing serious crawl or indexation problems – can have noticeable effects within weeks.
Others may take a few months as search engines recrawl and re-evaluate your pages.
8.6 Is Arrow Design’s technical SEO suitable for small Dublin businesses?
Absolutely. Many of our clients are small and medium businesses that simply want a website that works properly,
loads quickly and helps them attract more local customers. We tailor our technical SEO work to your scale and budget.
8.7 Can Arrow Design work with my existing website, or do I need a redesign?
In many cases, we can significantly improve technical SEO on your existing site. However, if the current site
is very outdated, slow or built on an unsuitable platform, we may recommend a redesign that incorporates
technical SEO best practices from the ground up. We will always explain why and provide options.
9. Ready to Improve Your Technical SEO?
Technical SEO may be invisible to most visitors, but its impact is felt in every search result, every click
and every enquiry. For Dublin businesses that want to compete seriously online, it is not a luxury –
it is part of the essential foundation.
Arrow Design can:
- Audit your website’s technical health.
- Fix critical issues that hold your rankings back.
- Improve speed, structure and mobile experience.
- Set up proper monitoring to keep your site in good shape.
Whether you’re a start-up in Dublin looking for your first professional website or an established company
wanting to take your online presence to the next level, Arrow Design is here to help.
Contact Arrow Design today to discuss technical SEO for your Dublin business,
request an audit, or simply get friendly, honest advice about your current website.
Let’s make sure your website doesn’t just look good – it performs brilliantly behind the scenes,
so you can GET Business.