Technical SEO is a crucial component of the broader SEO landscape. It focuses on optimizing the infrastructure of a website to ensure that search engines can crawl, index, and render its content effectively. While many consider the realm of SEO to be primarily about content and backlinks, the technical aspects are foundational and can significantly impact a site's performance in search results.
Technical SEO is an important part of overall SEO because it helps search engines understand what your website is about and how it should be ranked in search results. If your website is difficult for search engines to crawl or index, it's less likely to rank well for relevant keywords.
Here is a definitive guide to technical SEO:
Crawlability
Crawlability is the ability of search engines to crawl your website and discover all of your pages. This involves ensuring that search engines can easily access and understand your website's content. Tools like robots.txt and XML sitemaps play a pivotal role here. Over 80% of websites have broken link errors, and more than 65% have duplicate content, emphasizing the importance of regular audits.You can improve your website's crawlability by:
- Creating an XML sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console.
- Using a robots.txt file to tell search engines which pages they can and cannot crawl.
- Using a consistent site structure and internal linking structure.
- Fixing any broken links.
Indexability
Indexability is the ability of search engines to index your pages so that they can be ranked in search results. You can improve your website's indexability by:
- Ensuring that all of your pages are crawlable.
- Using canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page is the master version.
- Fixing any duplicate content issues.
- Using structured data to provide additional information about your pages to search engines.
Performance
Performance is how fast your website loads. Search engines give preference to websites that load quickly, so it's important to optimize your website's performance. You can improve your website's performance by:
- Using a fast and reliable web hosting provider.
- Optimizing your images.
- Minifying your code. As websites become more advanced, understanding how search engines interact with JavaScript and other coding elements is crucial.
- Using a caching plugin.
Mobile-friendliness
Mobile-friendliness is how easy it is for users to view and navigate your website on mobile devices. With the majority of searches now conducted on mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website isn't just a recommendation—it's a necessity. Search engines give preference to mobile-friendly websites, so it's important to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. You can check your website's mobile-friendliness using Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Other technical SEO factors
In addition to the factors listed above, there are a number of other technical SEO factors that can impact your website's rankings, such as:
- HTTPS security: HTTPS security is the use of the HTTPS protocol to encrypt all communication between a web browser and a website. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, and it is the secure version of the HTTP protocol.
- Hreflang tags: Hreflang tags are a way to tell search engines which language and region your website is targeting. This is important because it helps search engines to serve the most relevant version of your website to users.
- Canonical tags: are a small piece of HTML code that helps search engines determine the main version of a page. They are also known as canonical links or "rel canonical". Canonical tags are used in SEO to help search engines index the correct URL and avoid duplicate content.
- Schema markup: also known as structured data, is a code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. It is a type of microdata that provides additional information about your pages to search engines, such as the type of content, the author, the date published, and more.
- 301 redirects: Ensuring that your site is free from errors and that redirects are correctly set up is essential for both users and search engines.
- 404 errors: A 404 error is when a websites server can't find the page you're trying to access via a hyperlink or typing a URL in your browser.
- 500 errors: A 505 HTTP Version Not Supported error is a server error that means the server does not support the HTTP protocol version used in the request.
Key Elements to SEO
- Site Speed: A website's load time directly affects user experience and search engine rankings. With the increasing emphasis on mobile browsing, ensuring your site loads quickly on all devices is paramount.
- HTTPS: Switching to HTTPS is vital for security and is now a ranking factor for Google. Ensure that your SSL certificate is correct and up-to-date.
- Duplicate Content: Duplicate content can confuse search engines and can lead to a decrease in ranking. Tools can help identify and resolve these issues.
- Internal Linking and Site Structure: Properly structuring your website and ensuring a logical flow can help search engines understand the importance of each page.
- JavaScript and Advanced Coding: As websites become more advanced, understanding how search engines interact with JavaScript and other coding elements is crucial.
- Robots.txt and Meta Robots Tags: These tools control how search engines access and display your content.
- XML Sitemaps: These provide a roadmap for search engines, guiding them to the most important content on your site.
- Server Errors and Redirects: Ensuring that your site is free from errors and that redirects are correctly set up is essential for both users and search engines.
How to do technical SEO step by step
Here is a step-by-step guide to doing technical SEO:
- Perform a technical SEO audit. This will help you identify any technical SEO issues on your website. There are a number of different tools and services that you can use to perform a technical SEO audit, such as Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Ahrefs.
- Fix any technical SEO issues that you identify. Once you have identified any technical SEO issues on your website, you need to fix them. This may involve making changes to your website's code, structure, or content.
- Monitor your website's technical SEO performance. Once you have fixed any technical SEO issues, you need to monitor your website's performance to make sure that the issues have been resolved. You can do this using Google Search Console and other SEO tools.
Conclusion
Technical SEO is an important part of overall SEO. By optimizing your website's technical elements, you can make it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and render your pages, which can lead to improved rankings in search results.
If you are not familiar with technical SEO, it is a good idea to hire an SEO professional to help you. An SEO professional can perform a technical SEO audit of your website and identify and fix any issues.
Contact an SEO expert today to get your free SEO audit.
