Table of Contents
What is technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website for crawling and indexing to improve your website rankings in search engine result pages (SERP).
It involves various technical elements to implement on your website to make it more accessible and understandable for search engine crawlers.
Why technical SEO is important
Technical seo is essential because it is a crucial part of seo when it comes to ranking
Without technical seo, you can’t rank your website.
Think that
If your website is not visible to search engine crawlers then it will not rank on search results.
No matter how your content is, how good your website design is.
Technical seo helps your site to be visible to search engine crawlers it helps you to crawl all your URLs on your website and index them in their server
It also helps to improve your page speed and mobile friendliness and many more lets deep dive in.
Understand Crawling
Crawling is the first step when it comes to SEO. It means that every search engine has its own bots or crawlers (spiders)
that are sent by search engines to visit your website to crawl your web pages.
And they follow links on those web pages to discover more pages on your website.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a text file on your website when crawlers visit your website.
At that time the robots.txt file tells those crawlers what pages to crawl and what’s not.
It helps site owners to control which pages or sections on their website should be crawled and indexed.
You can check you robots.txt file by typing “yourwebsite.com/robots.txt”
XML sitemaps
A Sitemap is an XML file on your website that contains a list of pages and content and various information.
It tells the search engine to find where and which pages you have.
You can access your sitemap file by typing these two types of URLs
- yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml
- yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml
Redirects
A Redirect is a technique that is used to send users and search engines from one URL to another URL.
It is commonly used when a webpage is moved temporarily or permanently or when there are multiple versions of the same content but different URLs.
Redirect is used at the server level to tell the browser or crawler to visit URLs other than the one that was originally requested.
There are essentially two different redirect types.
301 redirect
In simple terms, this 301 redirect informs the browser and search engine that the requested URL has moved permanently to a new location.
This style of redirect is effective at transferring the original URL’s SEO value to the new URL.
302 redirect
The search engine and browser are informed by this 302 redirect that the requested URL has been temporarily relocated to a different place.
A 302 redirect is often used for temporary purposes and does not transfer SEO value to the new URL.
Optimize site structure
A well site structure is crucial for search engine crawlers. It makes it easy for crawlers to crawl your web pages.
A site structure also known as site architecture means that your website pages or section should be interconnected and arranged.
Site structure improves user experience, makes navigating easier, and gives search engines more information about the content and connections between pages.
Here are some key components for creating an effective site structure
Homepage:
The homepage means it is the starting point of a website and it should provide an overview of website content and navigation options.
Main Navigation
The main navigation menu is typically visible on every page and it contains links to the most important sections of the website.
It should be easy to understand and clear.
Categories or Sections
Websites contain different categories like an e-commerce website categories contain different types of products or blogs
that contain different content topics separated into different categories.
Subpages
Subpages are individual pages that are nested within the main section or categories of a website.
Subpages provide more detailed information or further categorization.
It is easy for users to find specific content because it is directly connected to the main navigation or relevant parent page.
Url structure
Url should be descriptive and reflect the site structure. Using meaningful keywords would be beneficial for both users and search engines
let’s understand this with an example
Url like: “yourwebsite.com/category/page” is more informative than
“yourwebsite.com/page?id=123”
Breadcrumbs
breadcrumbs make it simple for visitors to comprehend how their position on a page relates to other locations.
Both vertically and horizontally, it shows up near the top of the page and offers consumers a clickable route.
Internal linking
Internal links mean it connects subpages to related pages on your website.
By including relevant content links on your webpage users can easily move to related pages around that content.
It is also important for search engines to understand relationships between other pages and it helps to improve SEO.
Understand Indexing
The act of organizing your information and storing it in their search index is known as indexing.
Billions of pages are stored in the search engine’s larger database, which is located there.
Your website cannot appear in search results if it is not indexed.
By typing in the Google search bar, you may quickly determine whether your website is indexed or not
“Site:yourwebsite.com”
Below is the screenshot you can see
Noindex tag
The noindex tag tells search engines not to index a specific webpage or disallows indexing of specified material to conceal it inside a page.
Simply use it to keep particular pages hidden from search engine crawlers.
The pages may be your
- Thank you pages
- PPC pages
- Login or admin pages
- Temporary or seasonal pages
Below is the code to paste into the <head> section of your webpage
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">Canonicalization
When search engines find similar or identical content on multiple URLs on your website that is called a canonical tag.
Canonicalization is the process of addressing and managing duplicate content issues on a website.
Canonicalization is important because it creates confusion for search engines as to which page to show in ranking and which not.
when it has multiple pages with the same content.
The canonical tag should be included in the <head> section of your webpage.
Here how the canonical tag looks like
Technical SEO best practices
Add SSL certificate (HTTPS)
SSL (secure socket layer) is a secure version of HTTP to HTTPS which stands for (HyperText Transfer Protocol).
It makes sure the information sent between two parties is secure and protected from unauthorized access.
It helps to protect sensitive information like passwords, credit card details, personal and contact information, etc
Not having SSL on your website can hurt your SEO rankings.
In 2014 Google officially announced that SSL is a ranking signal in their search algorithm.
Search engine ranks for HTTPS-encrypted websites are slightly higher than for non-SSL websites.
Mobile-friendliness
Mobile friendliness is the crucial part you should do when doing technical seo for your website.
Because most of the users on the internet come from mobile devices.
In 2016 Google approached mobile-first indexing
which means the mobile version of a website is considered the primary version for indexing and ranking.
It simply means that if your website is not mobile-friendly it may not rank well in mobile search results which can directly impact your visibility and ranking.
You can check whether your website is mobile-friendly or not by using a Google tool called Mobile friendly test
and can see the report in the Google search console.
Below is the screenshot about how you can check
Optimize for core web vitals
Technical SEO requires the use of core web vitals.
To determine how interactive, usable, and quickly a webpage loads, Google uses speed metrics as part of its page experience.
The performance of your website will be enhanced by optimizing these indicators, which can also result in increased user engagement and a high search ranking.
There are three metrics lets know about
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP measures a webpage’s loading speed and shows how quickly the largest content,
like a huge image or text block, becomes visible to users.
You need to aim to reach this score for LCP which is 2.5 sec or lower.
First Input Delay (FID)
By measuring how long it takes for a user to interact for the first time,
FCD measures how interactive and responsive a webpage is
when the user interacts with the browser, such as by clicking a button or menu.
You need to aim to reach this score for FID that is 100 ms or lower
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
By counting the frequency of unexpected layout adjustments that take place throughout the length of a page,
it measures its visual stability.
You need to aim to reach this score for CLS that is 0.1 or lower.
You can check your core web vitals report in the search console
Website speed
Page speed is one of the main ranking factors in Google’s search engine algorithm for both mobile and desktop versions.
You can check your website speed with a tool from Google called page speed insights.
Here are some key strategies to optimize your website speed
Compress Images
Compressing images is the main thing when it comes to increasing website speed.
You can reduce your image size by using a tool called TinyPng without losing much quality of images.
Enable Browser Caching
To tell the user’s browser to store static resources like images, javascript, CSS, and other elements locally,
you must configure the caching headers for your web pages. These materials are downloaded and kept in the browser’s cache
when a user visits your website.
Instead of requesting the resource from the server again, the browser can get the cached version.
As a result, pages load more quickly.
Minify and combine files
It helps to remove whitespace, unnecessary characters, and comments from your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to reduce file size.
so it directly improves your webpage speed.
Use CDN(content delivery network)
Use a CDN to distribute the content of your website over numerous servers all around the world.
This lowers latency and ensures quicker delivery of material to users in various geographic regions.
Hreflang for multiple languages
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that is used when your website has multiple versions of the same page
in different languages, countries, and regional targeting.
It helps search engines understand which version of a page is perfect for that user according to their location and language preferences.
It is typically used in <link> tags within the <Head> section of the HTML pages.
Optimize 404 pages
Optimizing 404 error pages is an essential aspect of user experience and technical SEO.
When a user lands on a 404 error page. It simply means that the request page does not exist.
It badly impacts the user experience.
Let’s know some tips to optimize 404 error pages
Clear and user-friendly message
Provide a clear and concise message on the 404 error page to the user that the requested page cannot be found.
Use friendly and non-technical language so it’s easy for users to understand the situation
Monitor and fix broken links
Every day monitor your website to check broken links by using tools like a search console or other third-party link checkers.
Fix any broken links promptly to reduce the occurrence of 404 errors.
Return to the previous page option
Provide a button or link that allows users to go back to the previous page where they were.
instead of going to the non-existing page.
Helpful content and suggestion
Offer to users to visit relevant content on your website or popular articles.
The simple goal is to keep users engaged on your website.
Does technical SEO require coding?
No, you can do technical seo without coding but It would be better if you have any coding knowledge.
It is not necessary to have coding skills to do technical SEO.
How much does technical SEO cost?
The cost of doing technical SEO is vary significantly depending on various factors including the size and complexity of the website,
But the average technical SEO audit for a medium-sized website cost range from $500 to $5000
If you have any queries let me know in the comment section.