The term technical SEO may seem intimidating, in fact it suggests every activity done to improve
the technical aspects of a site, proper redressal of critical errors, rectify speed issues.
What Is Technical SEO?
So, in plain words when you fix all technical mistakes in a site, you are doing technical SEO.
But that is not it. Working on every detail is not feasible unless one has deep knowledge
of possible technical errors.
Non-secure Site
The most vulnerable and often overlooked technical SEO issue is to run a site without HTTPS. Believe it or not, you are right in the line of a hacker’s attack who are lurking to gain unauthorized access.
Indexing
indexing simply translates as registering each individual page onto google. The best practice for technical SEO is to index all the content including images, articles, videos immediately after publication. For the no-indexed pages look for the cause.
There are two approaches to know the indexing status of all the pages.
- One of them is to login into Search console, register site and check each page separately. Here you could also check all types of non-indexed pages under Page tab. Google will show the exact reason whether it came from Google itself or originated within website.
- Another way of checking all indexed pages is to run a query like this e.g. site: mysite.com. What you get is, all the indexed pages under mysite.com. By going through each result carefully one might observe other technical SEO issues like having the site name attached to the end of the title tag or other unwanted elements which need not be there.
Sitemap
sitemap is not only an organized collection of pages, category listings but it also guides search engines how to reach a particular content page. When a site is small with few pages it is easy to know what is what, but as the menu branches out and more articles or videos are published, the structure becomes cumbersome and every change need updating.
In addition to that, not all sites have perfect internal linking. Without it, no reference between two pages will exist. Sitemap improves technical SEO to a greater extent.
Duplicate Content
when two or more pages on a site have similar content, it is known as duplicate content issue. This is one of the most challenging tasks to remedy with technical Seo. When Google discovers these pages, it is most likely to get confused as to which one to rank over others. Furthermore, crawlers will have to devote more time to interpret the same content resulting in wasted crawl budget.
Structured Data
Structured code refers to a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying its content in a way that is easily understandable by search engines. It makes content on a webpage and present it in a more organized and useful manner in search results.
There are several types of it: most commonly used are,
Products: Providing details about products such as name, description, price, and availability.
Events: Including information about events like the date, time, location, and description.
Reviews: Offering ratings and reviews for products, services, or businesses.
Recipes: Specifying ingredients, cooking times, and other details related to recipes.
Organization: Describing details about a company or organization, such as its name, logo, and contact information.
Person: Providing information about an individual, including their name, photo, and other relevant details.
Website owners and developers use structured data markup to improve technical SEO, boost visibility and increase click-through rates and better user engagement.
Mobile-friendly Site
A big part of technical SEO is to optimize site for mobile screens. So that it can provide seamless user experience on smartphones and tablets. Also, its layout should adjust dynamically based on the screen size and orientation of the device.
For this, optimize images, minimizing code, and leveraging browser caching. Besides, text should be appropriately sized and formatted for easy reading on smaller screens.
Minimize Redirects
- Redirects introduce additional HTTP requests and can lead to latency.
- Conduct a thorough audit of your site to identify all existing redirects.
- Whenever possible, update internal links directly to the final destination rather than relying on redirects. Ensure that all internal links point directly to the canonical URLs.
- Redirect chains occur when one redirect leads to another. Minimize or eliminate redirect chains to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
- When possible, implement server-side redirects (e.g., using server configuration files like .htaccess or server-side scripts) instead of relying on client-side JavaScript redirects.
- Use a 301 redirect for permanent changes, indicating to search engines that the old URL has permanently moved to the new location.
- This helps transfer SEO value from the old URL to the new one
Site Speed
- Page load speed or site speed is broad term. But, we all experience it practically while browsing internet.
- More and more users are using mobile to search for their desired content. Since the advent of video options people want to watch more videos than read content. In this scenario, everyone has less time and wishes to find the accurate content loading immediately on their screen.
- A slow page will delay the appearance of images which makes it extremely annoying for the users. The more the delay higher are the chances that a person will jump to other sites.
- If the speed issue goes unresolved, not only the visitors will feel reluctant, but also the search engines will degrade such site.
- Improving site speed takes few steps.
- Repair an unstructured site and optimizing its design for mobile, desktop and tablet as well.
- Launch a site audit to identify what is causing delay in the load time and fix it.
- Checking core web vitals
- Google has a very remarkable approach to discern the speed related problems. Core web vitals are the metrices that are designated to catch specific problem each. Search console is the quickest way to observe if webpages are going under such issues.
Images
Images enhance user experience and improve a page appearance. A user reading text can better assimilate information along with images. But, if the size, format, or number of images is wrong or not as per the standard it might fall under technical SEO work.
- First thing first, deploy correct format of the image which is compatible across different platforms. JPEG, PNG, WEBP are three most popular formats. Prioritise using JPG format as it is lighter and more effective as compared to others. It is used as default extension for storing images. However, most modern of all is Webp which is faster and the lightest image format. Try converting all your images to the most efficient format to get best results.
- Use smallest size for images. Larger the file size, the longer it will take to appear on screen. Moreover, oversized images wont load appropriately on mobile screen. Therefore, optimizing image size will be beneficial for a site.
- Last but not least, keep the number minimum and only add images where it is necessary.
