To rank at the top of search results is a wild race and your best friend is search engine optimization (aka SEO). However, it can be pretty complex and require a lot of effort in different steps.
The first step in any complete SEO strategy should be improving your technical SEO. Even if you have the best piece of content, you’ll struggle to rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs) if you have technical SEO issues. Therefore, no matter what industry your brand is in, you should spend some time optimizing the technical SEO of your website.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website to improve its search engine ranking. It is important to note that technical SEO differs from traditional SEO in that it focuses on a website’s technical aspects rather than the content. Technical SEO includes optimizing website code, improving site speed, and ensuring that the website is accessible to search engine crawlers. Businesses can improve their search engine ranking and drive more traffic by improving these technical aspects of a website.
Why is Technical SEO Important?
Google’s robots crawl and evaluate web pages on many factors to present their users with the best possible results. These factors can be about user experience or helping search engine robots grasp what your pages are about. Improving technical aspects help search engines crawl and understand your site, which results in ranking higher.
Also, your website should work well for user experience. It has to be fast and easy to use. Working on technical SEO helps you with both search engine bots and user experience.
What is Included in a Technical SEO Checklist?
Without further ado, here is the technical SEO checklist you should follow.
Find and Fix Crawl Errors
“Crawl Error” means that Google has trouble viewing a page on your site. And if your pages can’t be viewed, they will not rank for anything.
So, it’s worth checking the Coverage report in Google Search Console for any errors. You can quickly identify any crawl errors in this way.
Go to the Coverage report, implement all redirects with 301 redirects, and go through any 4xx and 5xx error pages to figure out where you want to redirect them to.
Make Sure You’re Using HTTPS
Google announced that HTTPS protocol was a ranking factor back in 2014. So, if your site is still HTTP today, you need to change this.
HTTPS will protect visitors’ data, especially if your website asks for passwords or payment information. You can check Google’s detailed post about migrating from HTTP to HTTPS.
If you’re unsure if your site uses HTTPS, you can quickly confirm that by looking at your browser’s URL bar. If there is a padlock to the left of the URL, you are using HTTPS.
Fix Broken Links
As anyone who has tried navigating a website knows, broken links are frustrating. Not only do they make it difficult to find the information you’re looking for, but they can also cause technical problems for the site itself. Broken links can prevent search engines from properly indexing a site, leading to lower rankings and fewer visitors.
So, they create a poor experience for both humans and bots.
Fix the broken links.
You can use tools like Ahrefs, SeMrush, and Dr. Link Check provide to identify all of the broken links. Then redirect those links to valid pages and update any internal links to reflect the new URLs.
Check for Duplicate Versions of Your Site
Having duplicate site versions can cause technical SEO problems, including decreased crawl budget and duplicate content issues. This can happen if your domain is registered with multiple registrars or your site is accessible via both www and non-www versions. To avoid these problems, check for duplicate versions of your site and redirect any traffic to the preferred version.
All different versions of your site are:
- https://www.domain.com
- https://domain.com
- http://www.domain.com
- https://domain.com
And all of them should redirect to one. This will help ensure that search engines properly index your site and that visitors always see the most up-to-date version of your site.
Improve Your Site Speed
Site speed matters. If you’re serious about technical SEO, then you need to pay close attention to your site’s speed.
Google confirmed that page experience is an even more important ranking factor. And a slow page won’t create a good experience.
You need to make sure your site loads quickly. You can use several tools to test your site speed:
Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly
Always remember that: Google and other search engines now use mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor. Google’s search engine algorithm update of April 21, 2015, named “Mobilegeddon,” prioritizes websites that display well on smartphones and other mobile devices. The change did not affect searches made from desktop computers or laptops.
In 2019, Google officially switched to mobile-first indexing for all sites.
This means: If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, it will not rank very well. You can use the following tools to check your website’s “mobile-friendliness”:
- Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
- GTMetrix
- HubSpot’s Website Grader
- Bing’s Mobile Friendliness Test Tool
Use an SEO-Friendly URL Structure
Use URLs that are easy for users and search engines to understand.
URLs should be short and descriptive and have keywords that accurately reflect the page’s content.
Additionally, URLs should be formatted appropriately so that both humans and machines can easily read them.
To do that, you can simply add your primary keyword after your website’s root domain – or sub-folders. Always separate the words with hyphens; don’t use underscores or other punctuation marks.
All the pages on my site are set off this way. For example :
https://www.jimmyhuh.com/top-los-angeles-seo
You can see that the keyword comes directly after the domain, words are separated with hyphens, and the URL reflects the page’s topic.
Make Sure Your Site Has an Optimized XML Sitemap
Creating and optimizing your XML sitemap can help search engines index your content more effectively. And that can lead to better rankings and more traffic.
But what exactly is an XML sitemap?
Simply put, it’s a map of your website that helps search engines understand its structure. It includes information about each page on your site, including the title, URL, and when it was last updated. This allows search engines to crawl your site more efficiently and index your content more effectively.
Creating an XML sitemap is relatively easy. You can use a variety of tools to do it, or you can do it manually. Once you’ve created your sitemap, be sure to submit it to Google Search Console and other search engine platforms. And then regularly check your sitemap to ensure that it’s up-to-date and accurate. By following these steps, you can help ensure that your website is well-indexed by search engines and enjoys better visibility and traffic.
Fix Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is any content that appears on more than one URL. This can be caused by things like incorrect canonical tags, pages with multiple URLs, or even multiple versions of the same page (such as HTTP and HTTPS). Duplicate content can confuse search engines and make it difficult for them to determine which version of the page to index. This can lead to lower rankings and less traffic.
So, you need to fix them
Tools like Ahrefs or Semrush will help you to scan and fix duplicate content issues on your site.
There are some cases where you can’t avoid duplicate pages. For example, it is a big problem for eCommerce websites. In such cases, adding add the rel-canonical tag via Yoast SEO WordPress plugin will solve the problem.
Add Structured Data or Schema Markup
Structured data is a standardized format for representing information on a web page. By adding structured data to your website, you can help search engines understand the information on your page and index your content more effectively. As a result, your website will be more likely to rank higher in search results, making it more visible to potential visitors.
One of the most common structured data types is called schema markup.
Adding schema markup is an easy way to improve your technical SEO, and it can significantly impact your website’s visibility and traffic levels.
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