What is Technical SEO anyway?

Want to make sure your website is climbing the search engine ranks? Technical SEO is the secret ingredient! It’s all about making sure the behind-the-scenes of your website is running smoothly. Think of it like a car’s engine – if it’s not working properly, the car won’t run well. Same goes for your website! By making sure everything is in order, like the website structure, code, and content, search engines will be able to find and understand your website better, which will lead to higher rankings. So, keep your website running like a well-oiled machine with Technical SEO.

What an Optimized Website Looks Like

The Search Engines Can Find Your Website and Crawl You For Indexing

Imagine search engines as librarians, sending out robots to explore your website and catalog all the valuable content. The robots follow the links within your website, like a librarian following the Dewey decimal system, to find and understand the most important information on your site. Having a clear and organized internal linking structure is like having a well-organized library, it makes it easy for the robots, or librarians, to find and understand the most crucial content on your website, resulting in higher search engine rankings

Your Website Loads Fast

In today’s fast-paced world, nobody wants to wait around for a slow website to load. It’s like waiting in line for a ride at an amusement park, the longer you wait the less excited you become. In fact, research shows that over half of mobile users will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load! And it’s not just about impatience, slow loading times can also hurt your bottom line. Studies show that for every extra second a page takes to load, ecommerce conversion rates drop by 0.3%.

Google understands that a slow website can be frustrating for users and therefore, they prefer websites that load quickly. So, a slow website will rank lower in search results, resulting in less traffic. In 2021, Google made page experience, including site speed, an official ranking factor.

Wondering if your website is up to speed? There are several tools available to test your website’s loading time and give you suggestions on how to improve it. You can also look at the Core Web vitals, which Google uses to measure page experience. 

Your Content Is Current and There Are No Dead Links

Picture this: you’ve finally found the website you’ve been searching for, but when you click on the link, you’re met with a dreaded 404 error page. Not only is it frustrating for you as a visitor, but it can also ruin the user experience you’ve worked so hard to craft.

And it’s not just visitors that don’t like dead links, search engines don’t like them either. In fact, they often come across even more dead links than visitors do because they follow every link they find, even the hidden ones.

It’s not uncommon for websites to have a few dead links, after all, websites are always evolving. But, there are tools that can help you track down and fix these pesky error pages.

To avoid dead links in the first place, it’s best to redirect the URL of a page when you delete or move it. This way, visitors will be directed to a replacement page instead of a 404 error page. This will help keep your website’s user experience smooth and search engine friendly

Your Website Is Secure

A website that’s optimized for technical SEO is also a secure website. In today’s digital age, ensuring that your website is safe for users and protects their privacy is a must.

One of the most important steps you can take to make your website secure is implementing HTTPS. This ensures that no one can intercept the data sent between the browser and the website, keeping sensitive information like login credentials safe. To implement HTTPS, you’ll need an SSL certificate.

Google values website security and has made HTTPS a ranking factor. Secure websites will rank higher than those without it. 

There Is No Duplicate Content

Imagine you’re trying to find specific research information online, but you come across multiple websites with the exact same content. Which one do you choose? The same goes for search engines, if they find multiple pages with identical content, they don’t know which one to rank higher. This can lead to lower rankings for all of those pages.

The problem is, you may not even be aware that you have duplicate content on your website. This can happen for technical reasons, like different URLs showing the same content. To a visitor, it may not make a difference, but to a search engine, it does.

The good news is, there’s a solution to this problem. By using something called a canonical link element, you can tell search engines which page is the original or the one you want to rank higher. This helps search engines understand which page to prioritize and avoid duplicate content issues.

Your Website Uses Structured Data

Structured data is like a translator for your website, it helps search engines understand your content and business better. With structured data, you can tell search engines what kind of products or services you offer or what data and research you have on your website. Plus, it allows you to provide additional details about those products or services.

Think of it like giving search engines a map to navigate your website. There’s a specific format, described on Schema.org, that you should use to provide this information. This way, search engines can easily find and understand it, and place your content in the right context.

You Provide An XML Sitemap For The Search Engines

An XML sitemap is like a GPS for search engines on your website. It’s a list of all the pages on your site and serves as a guide for search engines to find all the important content. It’s often organized by categories such as posts, pages, tags, or custom post types and includes information such as the number of images and the last modified date for each page.

Ideally, a website doesn’t need an XML sitemap if it has a strong internal linking structure that connects all the content together. However, not all websites have a perfect structure, and having an XML sitemap doesn’t hurt. So, it’s always a good idea to have one on your website to make sure search engines don’t miss any important content.

In Conclusion

So there you have it, technical SEO in a nutshell. It’s a lot to take in, but you always have an expert like me if you have questions or need help with your SEO! Feel free to reach out any time.