Imagine you’re an online business investing in ads and attracting thousands of visitors, only for them to leave frustrated because something is wrong. This can be related to technical SEO, web performance, or even accessibility, and it happens more often than you think.
All these areas, which I see as highly interconnected, form the foundation of any successful online business. In fact, nearly every site already has some level of optimization by default. Without it, the chances of getting traffic or converting visitors into customers would be extremely low.
Technical SEO, web performance, and accessibility focus on improving sites to provide the best possible user experience, typically leading to higher engagement and more conversions.
That’s what everyone should see behind these areas—it’s all about a positive experience.
I’m Not Going to Wait More Than Three Seconds
Let’s talk more about numbers. They show that a positive experience can directly lead to higher revenue and profit.
Back in 2006, Amazon conducted a great experiment. They intentionally slowed down their site and found that every 100 milliseconds of delay cost them 1% in revenue. I understand that most of us run much smaller businesses, but this experiment set a precedent because the same principle applies almost everywhere.
In 2016, Google analyzed anonymized data from Google Analytics and found that 53% of mobile visits were abandoned when a site took longer than three seconds to load. Now, nearly a decade later, people are even more sensitive to speed, so that number could be even higher.
Recently, QuintoAndar, the largest housing platform in Brazil, focused on Core Web Vitals and reduced INP by 80%, which led to a 36% increase in year-over-year conversions.
I could go on for hours. We have hundreds of case studies and experiments showing that when companies start prioritizing technical SEO and web performance, they see significant increases in revenue and other key business metrics.
Clicked “Add to Cart” and Nothing Happened
From my experience as both a consultant and a user, I see the same issue repeatedly across almost every online store.
Ask yourself—how many times have you clicked the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button, and nothing happens for a few seconds? So, you click again, and suddenly, you have two of the same items in your cart. This frustrating bug is all too common.
And it doesn’t stop there. Often, after finally adding an item, you click the shopping cart icon, and again wait for 5–10 seconds for the page to load.
These two incredibly frustrating issues are tied to the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric in Core Web Vitals.
Your CMS might have a slow response time, but at the very least, the UI should indicate that the request is being processed—something as simple as a loading message like “Adding item to cart…” can make a huge difference. When users see that something is happening, they’re far less likely to get frustrated.
Personally, I’ve abandoned purchases because of this issue, either giving up entirely or choosing a competitor instead. It’s a critical problem that literally drives potential customers away.
Just Like Your House, Your Site Also Needs a Strong Foundation
You know what would happen to the house you live in without a strong foundation? There’s a high chance it wouldn’t be livable after some time. The same goes for your site and online business. If you neglect a strong foundation, it won’t be usable from the perspective of visitors and potential customers.
Many technical SEO elements that form the foundation of your site are now automated, so you don’t even think about them. This includes decent web hosting, basic caching solutions, and automatically generated robots.txt and sitemap.xml files. As a result, most sites have at least a basic foundation in place without even realizing it.
However, even if your site is fast and you have no performance issues, there are still plenty of other factors that, once addressed, will contribute to a stronger foundation.
I won’t go into every small but still important detail, but I will highlight the major categories of issues that should be resolved on almost every site. Let’s start with structured data, which helps search engines display your site with a more enhanced design, increasing CTR.
You shouldn’t forget about responsive design, as many crawlers, including Google’s, crawl sites as a smartphone. This means that if your site isn’t well-optimized for mobile, your chances of appearing in search engine results will be lower.
One of the most critical and complex elements to set up correctly is internal linking. Right now, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do once you have a basic foundation in place. Personally, I’ve seen significant ranking improvements for pages boosted by strategic internal linking. It also helps search engines and AI crawlers navigate your site more efficiently.
I also want to mention an old developer’s rule: A site should be fully usable even when JavaScript is disabled. Unfortunately, most developers have forgotten this principle, which is why many sites are not properly crawled, indexed, and appearing in search results or AI tools.
Once you optimize performance, address the fundamental technical SEO aspects that most developers can handle, and start focusing on more advanced optimizations that require additional time and effort, you’ll definitely see noticeable growth.
One in Six People Has a Disability
Accessibility is an important aspect of technical SEO. According to the WHO, 1 in 6 people worldwide has a disability. While not all disabilities affect a person’s ability to use the internet or navigate sites, including your site or online store, it’s essential to recognize that this is a significant group. Unfortunately, many sites make their online experience more difficult than it needs to be.
I often recommend that my clients address major accessibility issues, which I report to them. However, I don’t go too deep as accessibility is highly regulated, with legal requirements that vary by region.
I’m bringing this up to highlight an important point: people with disabilities can be your customers, but many are unable to engage with your site due to accessibility barriers. By prioritizing accessibility, you can be one of the first in your industry to offer truly inclusive services and products.
Don’t Ignore Any Area of SEO and Marketing
I personally don’t like those never-ending debates where people claim that certain areas of SEO or marketing aren’t important and can be ignored entirely. Every business needs all areas, it just depends on its stage of growth.
I’d like to emphasize that other areas, such as link building, content strategy, and marketing, are also crucial.
Every aspect of a site is so interconnected that neglecting any of them can prevent it from working optimally. Even if it does work, you can get significantly better results by paying attention to often-overlooked areas like technical SEO, web performance, and accessibility.