Technical SEO for LLMs

📋 Overview

Technical SEO forms the foundation that enables LLMs to discover, crawl, and understand your content effectively. Poor technical implementation can prevent even the best content from being indexed by AI systems.

🎯 Why Technical SEO Matters for LLMs

Large Language Models rely on technical signals to:

• Discover content: Through proper sitemaps and internal linking
• Understand structure: Via semantic HTML and schema markup
• Assess quality: Using page speed and mobile-friendliness as ranking signals
• Index efficiently: When pages load quickly and are crawlable

🔧 Key Technical Elements

1. XML Sitemap

Why it matters: Helps LLMs discover all your important pages

How to optimize:

• Include all important pages in your sitemap
• Update regularly when content changes
• Submit to search engines
• Keep under 50MB and 50,000 URLs per sitemap

2. Robots.txt

Why it matters: Controls which pages LLMs can access

How to optimize:

• Don't block important content pages
• Allow access to CSS and JavaScript files
• Block duplicate or low-value pages
• Include sitemap location

3. Page Speed

Why it matters: Fast-loading pages signal quality to LLMs

How to optimize:

• Optimize images (compress and use modern formats)
• Minimize CSS and JavaScript
• Enable browser caching
• Use a CDN for static assets
• Aim for sub-3 second load times

4. Mobile-Friendliness

Why it matters: Mobile-first indexing is the standard

How to optimize:

• Use responsive design
• Ensure text is readable without zooming
• Make buttons and links tap-friendly
• Avoid horizontal scrolling

5. Canonical URLs

Why it matters: Prevents duplicate content issues

How to optimize:

• Set canonical tags on all pages
• Point to the preferred version of each page
• Use absolute URLs, not relative
• Ensure consistency across HTTP/HTTPS

✅ Technical SEO Checklist

• □ XML sitemap created and submitted
• □ Robots.txt properly configured
• □ Page load time under 3 seconds
• □ Mobile-friendly design implemented
• □ Canonical URLs set on all pages
• □ HTTPS enabled site-wide
• □ Broken links identified and fixed
• □ 301 redirects for moved content
• □ Schema markup implemented
• □ Images optimized and compressed

🚀 Quick Wins

1. Enable compression: Use Gzip or Brotli to reduce file sizes
2. Optimize images: Convert to WebP and compress aggressively
3. Fix broken links: Run a crawler and repair all 404s
4. Implement HTTPS: Ensure all pages are served securely
5. Create sitemap: Generate and submit to search engines

📊 Measuring Success

Monitor these metrics to track your technical SEO improvements:

• Page Speed: Use Google PageSpeed Insights (target 90+ score)
• Mobile Usability: Google Search Console mobile report
• Crawl Errors: Monitor in Google Search Console
• Index Coverage: Ensure all important pages are indexed