Technical SEO is a term that every business owner has heard of. However, it is never simple in action, even when it sounds simple. So today, we will find out some basics about technical SEO. Even when the name sounds very contradictory, there is a need to have better knowledge to achieve the best outcomes from it.
Having an understanding of the technical aspect of SEO can mean a real difference in websites. It can help you to yield a better ranking, but it will also improve the website’s ability to stand in front. No doubt that technical SEO is very challenging, and therefore I will try to explain it in the most convenient and layman’s language. This will help you understand how technical SEO can become the foundation of your website and help it acquire the goals on a repeated basis.
Table of Contents
What do you mean by technical SEO?
Technical SEO is a term that refers to improving the technical aspect of any website. The prime reason for choosing technical SEO is to improve the page ranking in the search engine ranking pages. Since many benefits are there when it comes to improving the page ranking, understanding technical SEO is a major thing for any business website. It also makes sure that the website becomes easier to crawl by the Google spiders along with understandable. These are the pillars that ensure proper technical optimization.
Technical SEO is one of the most crucial parts of on-page SEO. Its primary focus is on improving the website elements in order to improve its ranking. It is completely opposite to off-page SEO, which is more about generating exposure for the website by other channels.
Why is it important to technically optimize your website?
The search engines like Google and others would want to offer the best experience to their users. Whenever the user searches for a particular query, the search engines would like to offer an accurate answer to it. Therefore, the robots crawl along with making a proper evaluation of web pages on Google by checking the different factors. Some of the factors are dependent on the user experience, such as the page loading time.
However, there are several other factors that can help search robots to grasp the details of your page. This is why you should always pay attention to offering structured data. So when you improve the technical aspect of this website, it helps the search engine crawlers to crawl your website and understand what it is all about. You will be rewarded with a better ranking and more traffic when you do this properly.
However, it can cost you if you make mistakes and do not make a proper technical on-page SEO. The first thing that you will find in the search engines blocking you entirely from crawling your website and making it completely impossible for you to rank. So if you accidentally add a trailing slash in the robots.txt file, it might be the wrong choice for you.
On the other hand, if you focus on the technical aspect of a website with the only intention of pleasing search engines, it is not a great option. There is a need for the website to work and perform well, have a clear interface, fast loading time and great user experience to impress the search engines. Fortunately, when your website has a robust technical foundation, it will offer a better experience to both search engines and users.
How do you characterize a website to be technically optimized?
When a website is technically optimized, it will be easy to crawl and fast for both users and search engines. When the website has been technically set up, it will help search engines understand more about the site and get rid of confusion caused.
You must know that the search engines would never send visitors to a website that does not have any working link or a great performance. So you always have to pay attention to finding technical SEO issues and optimizing them with knowledge and experience.
Faster website
In recent times, one of the most crucial needs of websites is to load faster. You must know that users are impatient in nature and would not like to wait for a page that takes longer to open. Research shows that 53% of website visitors coming from mobile will immediately leave if the webpage does not load within three seconds. This research was made back in 2016, which showed that a slow website could frustrate people and lead to abandoning the site forever.
Since Google already has the knowledge that slow web pages will not be able to offer the best experience, they would prefer the web pages that would take the least time to load. So a slow website might end up not getting a proper ranking along with less traffic. In recent times, when it comes to page experience, it directly means how fast your website is loading. So you better get prepared for it if you want to get a better ranking.
It is crawlable
Search engines make use of robots that cross the website. These are also known as web spiders. These robots will follow the links to find out your website content. You must know that when your website has a great internal linking structure, it will help the web spiders to crawl from one place to another easily. It also helps them understand the essential content available on your site.
However, there are some ways that you can utilize to guide these robots. For instance, you can easily block them from crawling the contents you don’t want to share. You can also guide them to crawl the page that you want but mention that you don’t want to show this page on the result pages.
- Robots.txt file: you can also start directing the robots on the site with the robots.txt file. This is a great tool that needs to be handled by experts in technical optimization SEO. As I have already mentioned before, even the smallest mistakes can cost you penalizing the website. It is better to have the knowledge and then solve the technical SEO issues.
There are many times people unintentionally block the JS and CSS files of the website present in the robot.txt file. These are the files that contain the codes that tell the browser about your website. When those files remain blocked, search engines will not be able to find out whether the website is perfectly performing. So, I will always recommend you to have a proper understanding of the robot.txt and then dive into handling it. Perhaps, you can choose a technical SEO company to handle your technical SEO ranking factors.
- Meta robots tag: If you really want these search engine robots or spiders to crawl your page, but you wish to keep the page out of the search results for any possible reason, you can do that by telling them in the robots meta tag. This is also a place that you can use to instruct the web spiders to crawl up the page but avoid following the page links.
The website does not have dead links
As you already know by now, slow websites can be frustrating; there are a few other things that you also need to know. What is even more annoying than a slo-mo page is when the visitors land on a page which actually doesn’t exist. When any link leads to a page that does not exist on the site, the users will find a 404 error page. It is where you start losing your viewers.
You must know that search engines do not really like to get this error on any page. So when you find more dead links than visitors encounter as they follow every site on a regular basis, it can be detrimental to the website.
Unfortunately, most of the websites have some dead links as it is continuous work. People try to make and break things, which is why deadlines are inevitable. Fortunately, in the current market, you will be able to find the tools that can help you to find the number of deadlines on your website. In order to prevent such dead links, you should start by deleting or moving them.
The website page must not have duplicate content that confuses the search engines
If, by any chance, your website has the same content on multiple pages or even on another site, search engines will get confused. The reason why they get confused is that they are not able to understand which page to rank higher. As a result, the search engine might rank all these pages with the same content at the lowest position.
It might happen that you have duplicate content issues without even knowing it. Due to technical reasons, different you are as might show similar content. For visitors, it might not make any difference, but it surely does for search engines. Especially when it finds the same content on various URLs, it will immediately start taking action.
So it is always advised to take help from the technical SEO company for the best results. Making use of the best technical SEO tools, it becomes easier for them to analyze the content. Apart from that, with the content team present, they will be able to eradicate duplicate content and create fresh and relevant content for your website.
The website is secure
A website that is technically optimized is also a secure website. You need to guarantee that the website is safe to crawl as it guarantees the basic requirement of privacy. There are a lot of things that you need to follow in order to make a website secure, and one of them is using HTTPS.
When your website has HTTPS, it makes sure that your website is safe for browsing. So whenever someone is logging in to your website by using their credentials, they know that their credentials are safe. You will require the SSL certificate for HTTPS implementation on your website. Also, because Google acknowledges security as a major aspect, keeping HTTPS is one of the most important technical SEO ranking factors.
It must have structured data
Structure data is another essential need of the search engine as they are highly helpful to understanding the website or business. When you have structured data, it tells search engines about the products or services you sell. Apart from this, it will also help them acquire other essential details about the products or services.
You have to make sure that you follow a fixed format to provide the information so that it becomes easier for the search engines to find and understand the information. It will also help them to understand where to place your content so that it can get a bigger picture. When you implement structured data, it is also eligible for offering rich results and stands out in the search engines.
Your website contains a proper XML site map
In simple language, an XML sitemap is actually the page list that is available on your website. It works as the roadmap for search engines on your website. When you have it included, it will guide search engines, and they will not miss any page or content on your website.
Most of the time, the XML site map is categorized into tags, pages, custom posts and posts. It includes the image number along with the last date of modification for every page. The website does not require an XML site map. In case it has a proper internal linking structure that connects the content nicely, robots will not require the XML site map to crawl the pages. However, since not all websites have a proper structure, having an XML sitemap would be helpful in every way.
Final verdict
So, this is everything about the technical on-page SEO. While you can do it on your own if you have the experience, in case you don’t want to invest time on promotion but core business, you can choose the best technical SEO expert like digital Habibi. With the technical skills required for SEO, you can acquire the best services from me.
I have been working for over seven years now and have acquired the details about technical optimization SEO. I make use of technical SEO audit software and tools that can help me to perform the job in the best possible manner. No doubt that it is time-consuming, but the result obtained can be retainable if you choose the best and most knowledgeable partner.
Technical SEO FAQs
How to perform a technical SEO audit
There is no doubt that a technical SEO audit is the first step before working on your website. Without a proper audit, it is almost impossible to find out the mistakes and loopholes. So there are several best technical SEO tools available in the market in recent times that can be helpful in finding mistakes. It is highly effective in finding the technical SEO issues, and with knowledge, the professionals can rectify them and offer a remarkable result.
Does technical optimization SEO yield the best results?
The core intention of technical on-page SEO is to improve your ranking. Technical SEO is highly effective in helping google crawlers to crawl your web pages by meeting their parameters. Every need of the web spiders is being met so that they call each and every page of the website and offer a good ranking. When you get a better ranking in the search engines, it will improve your visibility, traffic and conversions. Eventually, technical optimization in SEO can result in improving your ROI structure.
How important is technical SEO for e-commerce businesses?
In the recent market, e-commerce platforms are growing at an impeccable speed. With more and more retailers understanding the value of online e-commerce businesses, more e-commerce is showing up every day. So choosing technical SEO e-commerce can be highly effective in improving the ranking and so as the business ROI.
