As a marketer, you know the importance of ensuring your website is technically SEO-friendly. But what does that entail? And how can you be sure you’re doing everything possible to optimize your site for Google and other search engines?
In this go-to guide, we’ll walk you through the basics of technical SEO and explain exactly what steps you need to take to improve your website’s ranking.
Let’s get started!
What is Technical SEO, and What are its Benefits for Businesses?
An essential element of SEO until it isn’t any longer. To rank, pages must be crawlable and indexable, but many other activities will have little effect compared to content and links.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO optimizes a website to be easily crawled and indexed by search engines. It’s a subset of SEO that focuses on ensuring that a website is technically sound to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Technical SEO includes optimizing a website’s architecture, code, and on-page elements like titles, metatags, and anchor text. It also involves improving the site’s usability and speed. By doing so, you can ensure that your website is accessible to search engines and users.
Benefits of Technical SEO for Businesses
There are many benefits of technical SEO for businesses, including:
1. Increased visibility in search engine results pages: When your website is optimized for search engines, it is more likely to rank higher in SERPs, leading to increased business visibility.
For example, if you’re a local business, you may be able to rank for local search terms that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to rank for.
2. More traffic: Increased visibility in SERPs can lead to more traffic to your website. This, in turn, can lead to more customers and sales for your business.
For example, increasing traffic can increase sales if you sell products on your website.
3. Better usability: Technical SEO can improve the usability of your website, making it easier for users to find the information they need. This can lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty from your customers.
For example, if your website is easy to navigate and use, users are more likely to stay on your site longer and return in the future.
4. Reduced costs: Technical SEO can help you save money on paid advertising by increasing your website’s organic search traffic.
For example, if you’re currently paying for Google AdWords, optimizing your website for organic search can help you reduce costs and get more traffic from Google without paying for ads.
5. Improved ROI: The benefits of technical SEO can lead to improved ROI for your business. You can increase your overall profits by increasing traffic and sales while reducing costs.
For example, if you’re a small business, the increased visibility and traffic that technical SEO can provide can be especially beneficial in terms of ROI.
Technical SEO is essential for businesses that want to rank higher in search engine results pages and get more traffic to their website. You can enjoy the many benefits of technical SEO by optimizing your website for search engines.
If you need help with technical SEO, contact an experienced SEO consultant or agency like echoVME digital, who can help you optimize your website and improve your ranking in SERPs.
Why Is Technical SEO Important?
Technical SEO is important because it helps ensure your website can be crawled and indexed by search engines. It also helps to optimize your website for better visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Technical SEO includes optimizing your website’s structure, code, and content for search engines and users. Your website’s technical SEO can improve its overall ranking in SERPs, drive more traffic to your site, and convert more visitors into customers or leads.
Many factors contribute to a website’s ranking in SERPs. Search engines consider various factors when determining how to rank websites, including on-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and keyword density, as well as off-page factors like backlinks and social signals. Technical SEO helps to optimize your website for these ranking factors so that your site can rank higher in SERPs and attract more traffic.
Technical SEO is also important for the user experience of your website. If your website is difficult to navigate or slow to load, users will likely bounce back to the SERP and click on another result. Improving your website’s technical SEO can improve the user experience and keep users on your site longer. This can lead to better sales plus conversions.
Technical SEO vs On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO.
Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO are all important aspects of search engine optimization. Still, they each play a different role in helping your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Technical SEO focuses on improving the technical aspects of your website that can impact your ranking, such as site speed and indexation.
On-page SEO is all about optimizing your website’s content for both users and search engines. This includes using the right keywords and creating informative and engaging content.
On-page SEO is concerned with the content on your website that explains to search engines (and visitors!) what your site’s about, including image alt text, keyword usage, meta descriptions, H1 tags, URL names, and internal connections. Because everything is on your website, you have the most authority and control over on-page SEO.
Off-page SEO helps to build authority for your website by getting other websites to link to your content. Guest blogging or social media outreach are some examples.
Off-page SEO is all about gaining positive feedback for your page from other websites. Backlinks, or links from other sites to your own, are one way of letting search engines know how popular and useful your page is. A page’s PageRank is boosted by the number and quality of its backlinks.
All three types of SEO are important for ranking higher in SERPs, so it’s important to focus on all three as part of your SEO strategy.
How Complicated is Technical SEO?
The degree to which you can handle it is determined. The basics aren’t especially difficult to grasp, but technical SEO might be complex and opaque. SEO is always changing, and keeping up with the latest trends and changes can be challenging for even the most seasoned SEO professionals. Understanding technical SEO can be daunting if you’re just getting started in SEO.
For the uninitiated, technical SEO can seem like a foreign language. The acronyms and jargon can be confusing, making it difficult to know where to start. But don’t be discouraged—with a little effort, you can begin to understand the basics of technical SEO, and you’ll be on your way to improving your website’s search engine ranking in no time.
In its simplest form, technical SEO ensures that your website is optimized for search engines. This means ensuring that your website is accessible to search engine crawlers and meets all of the technical requirements for indexing and ranking by search engines.
Technical SEO Fundamentals
Technical SEO is a crucial part of any good SEO strategy because it helps Google understand your website and index your content correctly.
There are many aspects to technical SEO, but the most important things to focus on are your website’s structure, your use of keywords, and your site speed.
To ensure your website is optimized for Google’s search algorithm, you need to understand the basics of technical SEO. Read on to learn more about technical SEO fundamentals.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the method of optimizing your website for search engines.
There are a few things you can do to improve your website’s technical SEO:
Make sure your website is accessible to search engines: You can do this by submitting your website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Ensure your website is well-coded: Your code should be well-written and free of errors.
Make sure your website is fast: As mentioned above, Google has said that site speed is a ranking factor, so it’s important to ensure your website is fast.
1. Website Structure
One of the most important aspects of technical SEO is your website’s structure. Your website’s structure is how your pages are linked together.
Google uses your website’s structure to understand the relationships between your pages. A well-structured website is easier for Google to index and can help your pages rank higher in search results.
There are a few things you can do to optimize your website’s structure for SEO:
Use a sitemap: A sitemap file lists all the pages on your website. You can submit your sitemap to Google to help them index your site more effectively.
Use keyword-rich URLs: Keyword-rich URLs help Google understand what your pages are about.
Use descriptive titles and meta descriptions: Related & optimized titles and meta descriptions help Google understand your pages and improve your click-through rate from search results.
2. Keyword Research
Keyword research is researching the right keywords to target for your website.
The first step in keyword research is brainstorming a list of potential keywords. Once you have a list of potential keywords, you can use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to find out how many people are searching for those keywords and how challenging it would be to rank them.
Once you’ve found a list of target keywords, you need to incorporate them into your website. Some of the best keywords to use are in your page titles, meta descriptions, and headings.
3. Site Speed
The time your website takes to load is referred to as site speed. Google has said that site speed is a ranking factor, so ensuring your website loads quickly is important.
There are a few points you can do to improve your site speed:
Optimize your images: Large images can slow down your website, so optimizing images for the web ultimately improves image performance for users. You can use tools like Photoshop or online services like TinyPNG to compress your images.
Minimize your code: excess code can slow down your website, so make sure to minimize your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code.
Use a content delivery network (CDN): A CDN is a network of servers that delivers content to users based on their location. A CDN can help improve your site speed because the content will be delivered from a server closer to the user.
4. Mobile-Friendliness
In its recent algorithm updates, Google tells website mobile optimization is an important ranking factor, so it’s important to ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices.
There are a few things you can do to make sure your website is mobile-friendly:
Use a responsive design: A responsive design is a website design that automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of the device it’s being viewed on.
Use large font sizes: Assure your font sizes are large for mobile devices to read.
Use a mobile-friendly navigation menu: Mobile users are more likely to use your website’s navigation menu than desktop users, so make sure it’s easy to use on a mobile device.
5. Security
Google has said that security is a ranking factor, so it’s important to ensure your website is secure.
There are a few pointers you can do to make sure your website is secure:
Install an SSL certificate: An SSL certificate is a security certificate that encrypts data between your website and your visitors. Let’s Encrypt allows you to purchase an SSL certificate for free.
Use a secure hosting provider: A secure hosting provider is a web host that takes security seriously. Some of the best secure hosting providers are SiteGround, WP Engine, and Kinsta.
Use a security plugin: A security plugin is a WordPress plugin that adds security features to your website. Some of the best security plugins are Wordfence, Sucuri, and Jetpack.
6. User Experience
A person’s whole experience when using your site is referred to as the user experience. There are a few things you can do to improve your website’s user experience:
Ensure that your website is simple to use: Users must be able to locate what they’re searching for on your website if it’s simple to browse.
Make sure your website is visually appealing: Your website should be visually appealing so that users will want to stay on your site.
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly: As mentioned above, Google has said that mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor, so it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices.
7. Backlinks
Links from other websites to your website are termed backlinks. Google has said that backlinks are a ranking factor, so ensuring your website has high-quality backlinks is important.
There are a few things you can do to get high-quality backlinks:
Create high-quality content: Creating high-quality content is the best way to get people to link to your website.
Reach out to other websites: You can reach out to other websites and ask them to link to your website.
Submit your website to directories: You can submit your website to online directories, such as Yelp and Foursquare.
All these factors are important to consider if you want your website to rank higher in Google search results. If you focus on these factors, you’ll be well on your way to improving your website’s ranking.
Lets us Understand what Crawling is
To understand crawling, you first need to know a little about how the internet works. When you type a URL into your browser, your computer sends a request to a server somewhere on the internet. This server then responds by sending the website you want to view.
The process of sending and receiving these requests is known as communication. Computers communicate with each other using a protocol called Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP. When you type a URL into your browser, your computer sends an HTTP request to a server. The server then responds by sending the website you want to view.
Crawling is the process of automated software programs that visit web pages and follow links on those pages to other pages to index the entire website’s content. A search engine uses this index to provide relevant results when users enter keywords or phrases into the search engine.
There are two types of crawling: shallow and deep. Shallow crawling only indexes the main page of a website, while deep crawling indexes all pages, including those linked to other websites.
Most search engines use a combination of both shallow and deep crawling to index all the pages on the internet.
Crawling can be resource intensive for both the crawler and the server being crawled. Most crawlers respect a set of rules known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol or REP to reduce the load on servers. REP allows webmasters to specify which parts of their websites should not be crawled by robots.
Crawling can also gather data for other purposes, such as monitoring server performance or identifying broken links.
When a search engine visits a website, it makes a copy of the site’s content and stores it in its index. The next time someone searches for a keyword or phrase related to that website’s content, the search engine will retrieve the stored copy from its index and display it in the search results.
Understanding Indexing
Indexing is an important performance tuning method in SQL. Without indexes, your database will have to scan every row of data in a table whenever you run a query. This can be very time-consuming, especially with large tables. Indexes speed up query execution by providing quick access to your needed data.
There are two main types of indexes in SQL: clustered and non-clustered. A clustered index is created on a table when the data in the table is physically stored in order by the clustered index key. A non-clustered index is created on a table when the data in the table is not physically stored in order by the non-clustered index key.
Creating an index on a column in a table will improve query performance if the column is frequently used in WHERE, ORDER BY, or GROUP BY clauses. Indexes are also used to enforce uniqueness constraints on columns.
When you create an index on a column, the database engine will create a separate structure that contains the values from that column along with a pointer to the location of the row containing that value. This makes retrieving data from the indexed column much faster because the database engine can quickly find the desired values without scanning the entire table.
Keep in mind that indexes come at a cost. Whenever you insert, update, or delete data in a table, the database engine must also update all of the indexes on that table. This can cause your query execution times to increase. Therefore, you should only create indexes on columns that will be used frequently in queries that are not updated often.
You can use the CREATE INDEX statement to create an index on a column in a table. The syntax for this statement is : CREATE INDEX index_name ON table_name (column_name)
Where index_name is the name of the index, table_name is the name of the table, and column_name is the name of the column on which you want to create the index.
For example, consider a table named Customers that contains customer information such as customer id, name, address, and phone number. You could create an index on the customer id column as follows:
CREATE INDEX customer_id ON Customers (customer_id)
This would create a clustered index on the customer id column.
The process of storing copies of websites in a search engine’s index is known as indexing. Indexing is what allows users to find relevant information when they perform a search.
Search engines use algorithms to determine which websites are most relevant to a particular search query. These algorithms take into account various factors, including the website’s content, the website, the structure of the website, and the number and quality of inbound links.
Indexing is a complex process; it can take time for newly created websites to be indexed by a search engine. However, there are a few things that you can do to speed up the process.
First, ensure that the website is well-organized and simple to use. This will help the search engine’s crawlers index your site more quickly.
Second, add new content to your site regularly. This will give the search engine’s crawlers more material to index and help your site rank higher in the search results.
Finally, submit your website to the major search engines using their respective submission forms. This will let the search engines know that your site exists and help them crawl it more quickly.
Indexing is an important part of how search engines work, and it’s something that all website owners should be aware of. By taking the time to understand the indexing process, you can ensure that your site is properly indexed and that your visitors can find the information they’re looking for.
Canonicalization
One of the most important aspects of SEO is canonicalization. Canonicalization ensures that all of your website’s different versions are pointing to the same place.
For example, let’s say that you have a website with the following URL:
http://www.example.com/
You also have the following versions of that URL:
http://example.com/
http://www.example.com/index.html
http://www.example.com/?id=1
Each of these URLs represents a different version of your website. However, if you want your website to be found by search engines, all of these different versions must point to the same place. This is where canonicalization comes in.
Canonicalization is the process of choosing one URL version and redirecting all other versions to that URL. By canonicalizing your website, you can ensure that all your visitors see the same version of your site and that all of the link juice from inbound links is going to one place.
There are a few different ways to canonicalize your website. The most popular method is to employ a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is a server-side redirect that tells search engines that a page has been moved permanently. When you use a 301 redirect, all of the link juice from the old page is transferred to the new page.
Another way to canonicalize your website is to use the rel= “canonical” tag. The rel= “canonical” tag is an HTML tag you can add to your pages. It tells search engines which version of a page is the canonical version.
The rel= “canonical” tag is placed in the <head> section of a page like this:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/”>
This tells search engines that the canonical version of this page is at http://www.example.com/. Any other versions of the page, such as http://example.com/ or http://www.example.com/?id=1, should be redirected to this URL.
You can use the rel= “canonical” tag on all of your pages, but it’s especially important to use it on your home page. This is because your home page is often the most linked-to page on your site. By canonicalizing your home page, you can ensure that all of the link juice from other pages on your site is funnelled to your home page.
How to Fix Common Technical SEO Errors on your Website
If you’re a business owner with a website, it’s important to ensure your site is optimized for search engine visibility. One way to do this is by providing that common technical SEO errors are fixed. Here are four common technical SEO errors and how to fix them:
1. Duplicate content
One of the most common technical SEO errors is duplicate content. This happens when the same or similar content appears on multiple pages of your website. Duplicate content can hurt your search engine rankings because it confuses search engines and makes it difficult for them to determine which page is the most relevant.
To fix this error, identify duplicate content on your website and either remove it or add unique content to each page.
2. Broken links
Broken links are another common technical SEO error. This happens when a link on your website points to a page no longer exists. When someone clicks on a broken link, they’ll be taken to a 404 error page. This can hurt your search engine rankings because it makes your website less user-friendly.
To fix this error, use a tool like Screaming Frog to identify broken links on your website. Then, update the broken links to point to the correct pages.
3. Slow loading pages
Slow loading pages are another Technical SEO issue due to large image file sizes, poorly coded scripts, and other factors. This can hurt your search engine rankings because it makes your website less user-friendly.
Optimize your images by reducing their file sizes and using proper file naming conventions to fix this error. You can also minify your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to reduce the size of your pages.
4. Meta tags
Meta tags are another common technical SEO error. This happens when you forget to add or update your meta tags, which describe your website’s content to search engines. Meta tags are vital in helping search engines understand your website so they can rank it accordingly.
To fix this error, ensure all your website’s pages have unique meta titles and descriptions. You may use a tool such as Yoast SEO to assist you with this.
You can help improve your website’s search engine visibility and ranking by fixing these common technical SEO errors.
Quick Wins in Technical SEO
Technical SEO quick wins are actions you can take to improve your website’s technical SEO. These can be simple things like ensuring your site is mobile-friendly or more complex tasks like improving your site’s speed and performance. These quick wins can enhance your website’s ranking in search engines and increase your visibility to potential customers.
Some common technical SEO quick wins include:
- Website creation, including HTML, JavaScript, and CSS (programming languages)
- Optimizing your website for mobile devices
- Improving your site’s loading speed
- Optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions
- Creating an XML sitemap
- Setting up Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics accounts
- Ensuring your website is accessible to search engine bots
- Creating rich, keyword-rich content
- Optimizing your images and other media files
- Building backlinks to your website
- Implementing Schema markup
- Canonical tags
- Hreflang tags
Improving your website’s technical SEO can be complex and time-consuming, but it’s important to ensure your site is as search engine friendly as possible. Taking these quick wins can improve your chances of ranking higher in search results and attracting more visitors to your site.
Technical Tools for Improving the Quality of your Website’s Content
Technical SEO is a branch of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that deals with improving the visibility and ranking of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). It focuses on optimizing the website’s architecture, code, and structure to make it more easily accessible and indexable by search engines.
There are a variety of different technical SEO tools available, each with its unique capabilities. Some common technical SEO tools include:
– Google Search Console: This tool allows you to submit your website to Google for indexing and check its performance in SERPs. It also explains how Google crawls and indexes your website.
– Screaming Frog: This tool is used to crawl and analyze websites. It can identify technical issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, and redirect chains.
– GTmetrix: This tool measures a website’s page load time and recommends improving it.
– WebPageTest: This tool also measures a website’s page load time and provides hints for improving it. In addition, it allows you to test your website from different locations around the world.
– Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool analyzes a website’s speed and provides suggestions for improving it.
Technical SEO is an essential component of any SEO strategy. You can improve your website’s visibility and rank in SERPs by using technical SEO tools.
Let us Finish Up
Technical SEO isn’t something you can fully understand in a few paragraphs. This is only the beginning of what technical SEO has to offer. This should get you up and running, with additional links for you to explore if interested. This is not it; you should never stop learning about technical SEO to understand how it can help your business succeed online.
If you have questions about any of these topics or anything else related to technical SEO, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!
