How do you choose technical SEO help? Choose the person who will fetch a real URL, show you what the HTML contains, and write the fix as a task your developer can ship. Do not choose someone whose first recommendation is a new site, or whose delivery is a score with no address on it.
Technical SEO is about templates, indexation, and crawl paths. A Field Guide to Technical SEO explains that a fix should name the URL, and When an SEO Problem Is Technical separates technical problems from ordinary wording problems. Use that split in the interview.
Takeaways
- Ask them to fetch one URL on the call and say what is missing.
- A task names the URL, the HTML, and the change.
- A score without an address is not a delivery.
- A new site is a different project.
- Words problems should be handed back, not rebuilt.
The Job
The job is to find what blocks a crawler and to write it up so someone can change the template. It is not to rewrite your services, and it is not to promise a position once the crawl is clean. A clean fetch of a page that says the wrong thing is a success for this hire and a starting point for a different one.
If you do not know whether you need this hire, start with one URL you care about and ask a candidate to fetch it. If they talk about the whole industry instead of that HTML, you have your answer.
SEO Audits can include this layer. You do not need a permanent technical retainer to learn that a canonical points at the homepage. You need someone who will say so in a sentence.
The person who diagnoses it and the person who ships it have to meet.
What a Good Task Includes
A task you can accept has four parts:
- The URL that shows the problem.
- What the fetched HTML does.
- The change in the template, redirect, or rule.
- How you will know it worked, by fetching again.
"Improve technical SEO" fails that list. "These category URLs canonical to the homepage; remove that rule; fetch three of them afterward" passes. The second can be estimated, while the first can only be billed.
Ask who will verify. A task marked done because the ticket closed, with no second fetch, is not done. The check is the HTML, not the project board.
What to Refuse
Refuse a rebuild as the opening move. Most crawl problems are a rule you can change, and a new site is justified when you are replacing the business's tools for other reasons, not because a crawl export was long.
Refuse a retainer whose only artifact is a weekly score. Refuse access demands that include the domain registrar when the finding is a template. Refuse a guarantee that the index will "recover" by a date, since recovery is not a date anyone can sign.
If they mix content rewrites into the technical fee, ask for two lines. You may want both, but you should not discover at the end that the month was spent on blog posts.
How This Sits With the Developer You Have
Many owners already have a developer and need a translator. The hire writes the task, and your developer ships it. That split is healthy when the task is specific, and it fails when the SEO side will not speak in URLs or the developer will not fetch the page after the change.
| Bring them | So they can | Not so they can |
|---|---|---|
| A URL you care about | Fetch it on the call | Talk about SEO in general |
| Your developer, if you have one | Hear the task in their language | Be blamed for the crawl |
| Search Console | See what is indexed | Hand over every login |
| The template, or someone who can change it | Make the fix real | Approve a redesign first |
When an SEO Problem Is Technical is the filter for what belongs in that meeting. If the problem is a wording problem, do not staff it with a crawl specialist and hope the paragraph appears.
What to Put in the First Task
The first task should fit on half a page. Name the URL, what a crawler currently receives, the change, and how you will know it shipped. "Improve technical SEO" is not a task. "This URL redirects to itself in a loop; make it return the page; we will confirm by fetching it and seeing the sentence that is already in the template" is a task.
Include the evidence you already have, even if it is rough: a redirect chain you clicked through, a Search Console exclusion you can show, or a template that hides the text until a script runs. You are not expected to write the patch, only to point at the failure so the person you hire does not spend the week rediscovering it, or worse, inventing a different project.
Say who ships. If your developer is the only one who can change the template, the technical help is a diagnosis and a written change, and your developer merges it. If the person you hire will ship, say which environments they may touch and who reviews the change. Technical SEO fails in silence when advice and deployment live in two companies that never meet, so put both names on the task.
Refuse a first task that is a sitewide rebuild, a new theme, or a list of every plugin score on the domain. Those can be later conversations, but they are a poor way to learn whether this person can see one URL clearly. Also refuse a task whose done-state is a ranking. The done-state is the fetch: one address, the content visible, the preferred URL named. A Field Guide to Technical SEO uses that same done-state, and a partner who will not write it down is planning to report activity instead of a change.
Access should match the task. A way to view Search Console and fetch the URL is enough for a diagnosis. Production credentials can wait until there is a patch to deploy, and even then a shared deployment path is safer than a personal login you cannot revoke. Write down what you granted and when it expires.
When the task comes back, repeat the original test yourself: fetch the URL, read the sentence, and check the second address. If the failure is gone, the task is done, whether or not a score moved. If it is still there, the task is not done, and a paragraph about future work does not close it. Pay for the change you can see, then decide whether the next URL deserves the same kind of task or whether the words are now the thing to edit.
Questions
Do I Need a Specialist or Will My Developer Do?
If your developer will fetch the URL and change the template, you may only need a clear task. Hire a specialist when no one will write that task, not because the work has a dramatic name.
How Long Should the First Look Take?
Long enough to fetch the templates that generate the pages, not only the homepage. A five-page site and a catalog are different lengths, so agree which one you have before the crawl. Do not agree a date for a ranking.
What Access Is Reasonable?
Search Console, the site, and a way to see the template. Not the registrar, not the bank, and not a demand to transfer the domain.
What Does Done Look Like?
You can fetch the URL and see the change: the heading that was missing is in the HTML, or the canonical no longer points at the homepage. A closed ticket is not the proof.
Conclusion
Choose technical SEO help by asking them to fetch a URL and write a task. The task names the HTML and the change. Refuse a new site as the first answer, and refuse a score with no address. Done means a second fetch, not a closed ticket.
If you want those tasks written from the templates you already run, Speak With Us.
