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Intermediate Course · Class 1 of 6Technical SEO: Sitemaps, Robots, Speed & Core Web Vitals
⏱ 30 min read · 🃏 flashcards · 📝 8-question quiz
Technical SEO makes sure search engines can crawl, understand and quickly load your site. Great content on a broken foundation still fails.
The crawl foundation
- XML sitemap — a file (usually
/sitemap.xml) listing every important URL. Submit it in Google Search Console so Google finds new pages fast. - robots.txt — at
/robots.txt, tells crawlers what to skip (admin pages, cart pages). One wrong line (Disallow: /) can deindex your whole site — check it! - HTTPS — SSL is mandatory. Browsers mark HTTP sites "Not secure" and Google prefers HTTPS.
- Mobile-first — Google ranks the mobile version of your site. Test every template on a phone.
- Clean architecture — every important page reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage; no orphan pages.
Speed & Core Web Vitals
Google measures real-user experience with three Core Web Vitals:
| Metric | Measures | Good score |
|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | How fast the main content loads | ≤ 2.5 s |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | How fast the page responds to taps/clicks | ≤ 200 ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | How much things jump around while loading | ≤ 0.1 |
Test any page free at PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev). The most common fixes: compress images to WebP, enable caching, remove unused plugins/scripts, use a CDN, and set width/height on images so the layout doesn't shift.
Find problems before Google does
- Google Search Console (free, non-negotiable) — indexing status, errors, keywords you already rank for.
- Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) — crawls your site like Googlebot: finds broken links, duplicate titles, missing meta tags, redirect chains.
Key takeaway: Sitemap submitted, robots.txt safe, HTTPS on, Core Web Vitals green, zero broken links. Run our Free Site Audit on every important page — technical SEO is a page-by-page discipline.
🃏 Flashcards — tap to flip & memorise
Active recall beats re-reading. Say the meaning out loud, then tap to check yourself.
📝 Class 1 Quiz — 8 questions
Answer every question, then submit for your instant score. 60%+ passes the class — perfect scores earn extra applause! 👏