This article will cover the fundamentals of technical SEO. Now, discussing the fundamentals of technical SEO may seem contradictory. Nonetheless, a fundamental understanding of the more technical aspects of SEO can be the difference between a site that ranks highly and one that does not rank at all. Technical SEO is not simple, but we’ll explain in layman’s terms which aspects of your website’s technical foundation you should (ask your developer to) prioritize.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is all about enhancing the technical aspects of a website in order to boost its pages’ search engine rankings. Increasing a website’s speed, crawlability, and search engine readability are the pillars of technical optimization. Technical SEO is a subset of on-page SEO, which concentrates on optimizing website elements to achieve higher rankings. It is the opposite of off-page SEO, which entails increasing a website’s exposure through other channels.
Related Article: Best Ways You Can Improve Your Google Rankings
Why should you optimize your site technically?
Google and other search engines strive to offer their consumers the most relevant results for their queries. Therefore, Google’s robots examine and assess web pages based on a variety of criteria. Some factors are dependent on the user’s experience, such as the speed at which a page renders. Other factors aid search engine algorithms in understanding the content of your web pages. This is one of the functions of structured data. Consequently, by enhancing technical aspects, you assist search engines in crawling and comprehending your website. If you perform this task effectively, you may be rewarded with higher rankings. Or even achieve prosperous results!
It also works in reverse: if you make significant technical errors on your website, they can be costly. You wouldn’t be the first to completely prevent search engines from scanning your website by inadvertently placing a trailing slash in the incorrect location in your robots.txt file.
However, you should not focus on the technical aspects of a website in order to satisfy search engines. A website should function well – it should be quick, clear, and simple to use – for your users. Fortunately, establishing a solid technical foundation is frequently accompanied by improved user and search engine experiences.
Useful Article: How to Find SEO Experts in India to Enhance Website Visibility
What are the characteristics of a technically optimized website?
A technically sound website is quick for consumers and simple for search engine spiders to crawl. An appropriate technical configuration enables search engines to comprehend a website’s subject matter. Additionally, it prevents perplexity brought on by, for example, duplicate content. In addition, it does not transport visitors or search engines to dead ends due to broken links. Here, we will briefly discuss the essential elements of a technically optimized website.
1. It’s fast
Nowadays, web pages must open quickly. Individuals are impatient and hate having to wait for a web page to load. In 2016, research revealed that 53 percent of mobile website visitors will abandon a page if it does not load within three seconds. The trend persists; research from 2022 indicates that ecommerce conversion rates decrease by approximately 0.3% for every additional second a page takes to render. Therefore, if your website is sluggish, visitors will become frustrated and leave, causing you to lose traffic.
Google is aware that sluggish web pages provide a subpar user experience. Therefore, they favor faster-loading web pages. Consequently, a sluggish web page ranks lower in search results than its faster counterpart, resulting in even less traffic. Since 2021, Page experience (how quickly users encounter a website) has become an official Google ranking factor. Therefore, the importance of having pages that load swiftly is greater than ever.
Are you unsure whether your website is efficient enough? Learn how to effortlessly test the speed of your site. The majority of examinations will also provide suggestions for areas of improvement. You may also examine the Core Web vitals, which Google employs to indicate Page experience. In this section, we will also provide you with common optimization suggestions for site speed.
Useful Article: How to Improve Website Loading Speed?
2. It’s crawlable for search engines
Robots are utilized by search engines to explore, or spider, your website. The robots uncover content on your website by following links. A strong internal linking structure will ensure that they comprehend the most essential site content.
However, there are additional methods for guiding robotics. You can prevent them from crawling certain content, for instance, if you don’t want them to visit that page. You can also allow them to crawl a page, but instruct them not to display it in search results or follow its links.
Robots.txt file
Using the robots.txt file, you can instruct robots on how to navigate your website. It is a potent instrument that must be handled with caution. As mentioned previously, a minor error may prevent robots from perusing (important portions of) your website. Inadvertently blocking CSS and JS files in the robots.txt file occurs occasionally. These files contain code that instructs browsers on how your website should appear and function. If these files are blocked, search engines cannot discern if your site is functional.
Learn more from the article Robots.txt and SEO: Everything You Need to Know
The meta robots tag
If you want search engine robots to crawl a page, but you don’t want it to appear in search results, you can inform them using the robots meta element. With the robots meta element, you can also instruct search engines to crawl a page without following its links.
3. It doesn’t have (many) dead links
We have discussed how irritating slow websites are. Even more frustrating for visitors than a sluggish page could be landing on a nonexistent page. If a link on your site leads to a nonexistent page, a 404 error page will be displayed. Your meticulously crafted user experience has been destroyed!
In addition, search engines dislike finding these error pages. In addition, they discover even more dead links than visitors do because they follow every link they encounter, even if it’s concealed.
Unfortunately, the majority of websites contain (at least some) inactive links because a website is an ongoing work in progress: people create and destroy content. Thankfully, some tools can assist you in recovering dead links on your website.
When you delete or relocate a page’s URL, you should always redirect it in order to prevent unnecessary inactive links. Ideal redirection would be to a page that replaces the previous one.
4. It doesn’t confuse search engines with duplicate content
If you have the same content on multiple pages of your site – or even on other sites – search engines may become perplexed. Because, if these pages contain identical content, which should rank highest? As a result, they may rank all pages with identical content lower.
Sadly, you may have duplicate content problems without even realizing it. Due to technical reasons, various URLs may display identical content. This makes no difference for visitors, but search engines will see identical content at a different URL.
This problem has a technical solution, thankfully. Using the so-called canonical link element, you can specify the original page – or the page you wish to rank highly in search engines – or the page you wish to rank highly.
5. It’s secure
A website that is technically optimized is a secure website. Providing users with a secure website that protects their privacy is now a fundamental requirement. One of the most important measures you can take to secure your (WordPress) website is to implement HTTPS.
HTTPS assures that no one can intercept data transmitted between a browser and a website. Therefore, if users opt into your website, their credentials are secure. Implementing HTTPS on your website requires an SSL certificate. Google recognizes the significance of security by incorporating HTTPS as a ranking signal: secure websites rank higher than their insecure counterparts.
In the majority of web browsers, it is simple to determine whether or not your website utilizes HTTPS. On the left side of the browser’s search bar, a lock will appear if the site is secure. If “not secure” is displayed, you (or your developer) have work to do!
6. It has structured data
Structured data assists search engines in comprehending your website, its content, and your business. With structured data, you can inform search engines about the type of products you sell and the recipes on your website. In addition, it allows you to provide information about the products or recipes.
There is a fixed format (described on Schema.org) in which you should provide this information so that search engines can locate and comprehend it easily. It helps them situate your content within a larger context.
Structured data implementation can provide you with more than a greater understanding of search engines. It also qualifies your content for rich results, those results with stars or additional information that stand out in search results.
7. It has an XML sitemap
Simply stated, an XML sitemap is a list of your website’s pages. It offers search algorithms a map of your website’s structure. With it, you can ensure that search engines do not overlook any essential content on your website. The XML sitemap frequently includes categories for posts, pages, tags, and other custom post types, as well as the number of images and last modified date for each page.
A website should ideally not require an XML sitemap. If it has an internal linking structure that connects all of its content well, algorithms will not require it. However, not all websites have excellent architecture, and having an XML sitemap won’t hurt. Therefore, we always recommend including an XML site map on your website.
8. International websites use hreflang
If your site targets multiple countries or multiple countries where the same language is spoken, search engines need a little assistance determining which countries or languages you’re targeting. If you assist them, they will be able to display the appropriate local website in the search results.
Hreflang elements facilitate this process. You can use them to specify the country and language for which each page is intended. This also eliminates the possibility of duplicate content: even if your US and UK sites display identical content, Google will recognize that they are written for different regions. International website optimization is a highly specialized field.
Wrapping Up
Technical SEO is the basis of website optimization, concentrating on the backend elements that impact search engine visibility and user experience. It includes factors such as site speed, mobile responsiveness, indexing, and structured data, which collectively improve a website’s performance and accessibility for both users and search engines. Businesses seeking to establish a robust online presence and obtain favorable rankings in search engine results must master technical SEO.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does technical SEO include?
What exactly is technical SEO? Technical SEO is the process of enhancing the technical aspects of a website in order to boost its search engine rankings. Increasing a website’s speed, crawlability, and search engine readability are the pillars of technical optimization.
What are the benefits of technical SEO?
- Enhanced User Experience
- Increased Search Engine Visibility
- Improved Core Web Vitals
- Higher SEO Ranking
- Reduced Bounce Rate
- Enhanced Website Traffic
What is an SEO technical audit?
An essential component of site maintenance, a technical SEO audit analyses the technical aspects of your website. An audit will determine whether a website is adequately optimized for search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
What is the difference between SEO and SEO technical?
Technical SEO relates to the structure of your website behind the scenes. Unlike on-page SEO, which focuses on the content of your web pages, technical SEO is concerned with ensuring that your website is set up so that search engines can easily discover, organize, and display your web pages in search results.