Your website is your online store. You expect visitors, clicks, and sales. You run ads, create content, and manage campaigns. Yet, your traffic drops, and conversions stay low. You start asking why search engines ignore you. The answer often hides in your website’s backend. The real cause lies in technical SEO. You can have perfect design, creative ads, and rich content. None of that will perform if your site faces hidden technical problems.
E-Commerce Planners understand the struggle. Many ecommerce brands and digital marketers fix content but overlook backend flaws. You need a strong technical framework to support your SEO campaigns and paid marketing. You can avoid common mistakes if you focus on the Top 10 Technical SEO Issues Every Website Must Fix. Each fix improves crawlability, speed, and trust. Your audience stays longer. Your sales rise.
What causes technical SEO issues?
You face issues when search engines can’t crawl or index pages properly. You lose trust when pages load slowly or show errors. You lose users when mobile visitors get poor designs. E-commerce platforms pay a high cost for neglecting technical SEO. Fixing them boosts SEO, enhances performance, improves conversions, and grows brand value.
Why do these issues matter for E-commerce & Growth Brands?
You sell online. You spend on Google Ads, Amazon Ads, and Social Media Ads. You invest in SEO & Content Marketing. You rely on Shopify Store Management or Amazon Account Management. If a site is slow, insecure, or has broken links, ads waste money, products do not show in search, and reviews don’t appear. Technical SEO issues hurt ad costs, damage brand trust and reduce organic traffic. Data shows that 70-80% of audited sites are missing alt attributes, have low page speed and broken links.
What are the Top 10 Technical SEO Issues & how do you fix them?
You must audit your site for each issue. You must act. Below are issues with detection methods and fixes. Use tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and PageSpeed Insights to audit.
1. HTTPS / SSL & Mixed Content Issue
What it is: Your site uses HTTPS, but some assets (images, scripts, styles) load via HTTP.
Why it matters: Browsers may block or warn users. Search engines prefer fully secure sites. Mixed content reduces trust and ranking.
How to detect: Use the browser console to find mixed content warnings. Use automated scan tools. Search for HTTP links on HTTPS pages.
Fix it: Update all internal links to use HTTPS. Change HTTP URLs in CSS, JS and images. Check that the SSL certificate is valid. Redirect legacy HTTP traffic to HTTPS via 301 redirect.
2. Indexation & Crawlability Problems
What it is: Search engines can’t access important pages. Pages may be blocked in robots.txt or marked “noindex.”
Why it matters: If pages do not appear in the index, they bring no traffic. Wrong pages may appear instead.
How to detect: Check Google Search Console for crawl errors. Use site audit tools. Check sitemap.xml. Check robots.txt. Check meta robots tags.
Fix it: Allow bots via robots.txt. Remove unwanted noindex tags. Ensure the sitemap contains only 200 pages. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console. Use internal links to important pages.
3. Broken Pages & Errors (4xx / 5xx)
What it is: Pages return “404 Not Found” or “500 Internal Server Error”.
Why it matters: Broken pages reduce user experience. Search engines drop pages with many errors. You lose link equity.
How to detect: Crawl the site with audit tools. Check server logs. Search Console “coverage” report.
Fix it: Redirect broken pages with 301 redirects to the relevant page. Fix server issues causing 500 errors. Remove or update links to 404 pages. Use custom 404 pages to guide the user back.
4. Duplicate Content & Canonicalization Mistakes
What it is: Same or very similar content appears under multiple URLs. Canonical tags are misused or missing.
Why it matters: Search engines do not know which URL to rank. Link equity splits. Risk of penalties.
How to detect: Audit for duplicate title tags, duplicate body content. Use tools to compare URL variants (www vs non-www, trailing slash vs no slash). Check canonical tags.
Fix it: Choose one version of all URLs (www or non-www, HTTPS). Use rel=”canonical” tags properly. Use 301 redirects. Ensure canonical URLs point to live, valid pages.
5. Meta Robots & Robots.txt Misconfigurations
What it is: Robots.txt blocks content you want indexed. Meta robots tags set to noindex/nofollow by mistake.
Why it matters: Important content never reaches search results. Search engines may waste crawl budgets.
How to detect: Inspect robots.txt manually. Audit pages for meta robots tags. Use GSC page inspection.
Fix it: Adjust robots.txt to allow Googlebot. Remove noindex/nofollow from pages you want in search. Apply correct internal linking. Double-check the header vs HTML meta directives.
6. XML Sitemap Errors or Missing Sitemap
What it is: Sitemap has broken links, redirects, and missing pages. Or the sitemap doesn’t exist.
Why it matters: Search engines may not find pages. Crawl budget misused. SEO suffers.
How to detect: Access your sitemap. Check for non-200 URLs. See if the sitemap suits the site size.
Fix it: Include only live, indexable pages. Remove redirected or broken URLs. Split the large sitemap if needed. Use the sitemap index file for multiple sitemaps. Submit properly in Google Search Console.
7. Slow Page Speed & Core Web Vitals Failures
What it is: Slow page load times. Layout shifts. Poor interactivity.
Why it matters: Users leave slow sites. Google uses Core Web Vitals as ranking signals. Bad speed hurts organic and paid performance.
How to detect: Use PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse. Check LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift).
Fix it: Compress images. Use lazy loading. Minify CSS and JS. Use proper caching. Host on fast servers or CDN. Use Shopify optimization, theme optimization, and speed audits from your web development service.
8. Mobile Usability & Mobile-First Indexing Problems
What it is: Poor mobile design. Missing content, navigation issues, and unresponsive elements.
Why it matters: Google uses mobile-first indexing. If the mobile site is bad, rankings suffer. Many users browse on mobile.
How to detect: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Inspect the mobile usability report in Search Console. Compare mobile vs desktop content.
Fix it: Use a responsive design. Ensure touch targets are usable. Use readable fonts. Keep mobile content consistent.
9. Faulty Internal Linking & Orphan Pages
What it is: Important pages have no internal links (“orphan”). Links lead to redirects or broken pages.
Why it matters: Search engines must follow internal links to discover pages. Page authority is distributed via links. Orphan pages stay invisible.
How to detect: Crawl the site. Check link structure. Use tools to find pages with zero internal inlinks.
Fix it: Add internal links from relevant pages. Use logical site architecture. Fix redirects in links. Remove or redirect pages that do not get traffic or links.
10. Poor or Missing Structured Data (Schema), Alt Text, Markup Issues
What it is: Schema markup is missing or incorrect. Images lack alt text. HTML markup errors.
Why it matters: Rich snippets improve click-through rate. Accessibility suffers. Search engines may misinterpret content.
How to detect: Use Rich Results Test, Schema.org validators. Audit images for missing alt attributes. Check HTML for errors.
Fix it: Add relevant schema (products, reviews, FAQ) in JSON-LD format. Provide alt text for every image. Clean up HTML markup. Use valid tags.
What bonus technical issues deserve attention?
Sometimes issues beyond the top 10 still cost you. You should check:
- Redirect chains or loops
- URL structure problems (too many parameters, very long URLs)
- Pagination / infinite scroll handled improperly
- Excessive header tags or wrong HTML hierarchy
These often show in large e-commerce sites and affect crawl budget, ranking, and user experience.
How you should prioritize & audit issues
You have limited resources. You need order. Follow this roadmap:
- Fix security & indexation issues first (HTTPS, robots.txt, noindex).
- Next, address speed and mobile usability.
- Then, broken links, duplicate content, and sitemap cleanup.
- Later, structured data and internal linking tweaks.
Use tools:
- Google Search Console
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- SEMrush / Ahrefs site audits
- PageSpeed Insights & Lighthouse
Build an audit checklist. Use your SEO & Content Marketing team together with Web Development & Shopify Store Management service or Amazon Account Management service.
Example: Before & After Snapshot
You run a Shopify store. You neglect page speed, mixed content, and orphan pages. Organic traffic flatlines. Ad spend per acquisition escalates.
You audit. You fix SSL, update mixed content, remove orphan pages, improve internal linking, and clean the sitemap.
Traffic rises by 30%. Ads’ cost per conversion drops 25%. Time on page improves. Bounce rate drops. ROI improves.
How do you maintain technical SEO
You cannot fix once and forget. Search engines update. Your site grows. You deploy new pages and features.
You should schedule audits every 2-3 months. You should monitor key metrics:
- Crawl errors
- Indexation status
- Core Web Vitals
- Mobile usability errors
You should tie technical checks into your Web Design & Development service workflows, Shopify Store Management processes, Amazon Private Label & Amazon Account Management audits.
People Also Ask For
How often should you run a technical SEO audit?
Every 2-3 months or after big site changes like redesign, platform migration, or major product line addition.
Can fixing all technical issues guarantee top rankings?
No. You need great content, a strong backlink profile, and user trust. Technical SEO builds the foundation.
What if you have thousands of product pages or a huge site?
You must prioritize low-value vs high-value pages. Use pagination, canonical tags, and indexation rules. Use tools to identify high-traffic pages first.
Key takeaways
You saw the Top 10 Technical SEO Issues that likely cost your site traffic and conversions. You understood detection and fixes. You got a roadmap for priority.
You must address these issues now. You must link your SEO & Content Marketing service, Web Design & Development service, Amazon Account Management, Shopify Store Management, and Amazon Private Label service to your technical SEO workflows.
Don’t leave hidden errors alive. Improve speed. Secure your site. Clean your sitemap. Optimize mobile. Use structured data. Fix internal linking. Doing all this boosts organic rankings and ad ROI.
