When we read the word ‘technical,’ we relate it to the technical subject matter. But, it is not the case with Technical SEO.
Technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a systematic approach to improve the technical aspects of a website that helps in getting higher ranking positions in the search results.
A technically optimized site is easy to load and understandable for search engines. The prime goal of technical SEO is to optimize the website’s infrastructure so that it can be index and crawled efficiently.
Want to perform a quick SEO audit for your site?
Go through this blog, and you will get your answer. This blog focuses on the key elements that help to optimize a website for technical SEO.
A technically optimized site for search engines improves visibility and ranking positioning. Ultimately, it boosts website traffic, conversion rates, and ROI. Hence, a technical SEO audit should be performed periodically.
Let’s explore the ways to execute quick technical SEO for your website.
#1. Indexing with robots.txt and XML sitemaps
robots.txt file is extremely important for the search engine crawlers to index your web pages and files. These crawlers are continually searching the web and requesting information.
So, confirm that a robots.txt file exists for a website. It can be quickly done by adding /robots.txt to the end of your URL. Look at the list and make sure that disallowed pages are not indexed.
Finally, link robots.txt file to an XML site map. This action helps to inform search about the most important web pages. If you do not want some pages to be crawled, verify that the pages are marked with “noindex” or “nofollow”.
#2. Inspect the URL structure
Once you have checked the robot.txt file and XML sitemaps, it’s time to inspect the URL structure. A website with an intuitive URL structure helps to get an overview of the web page.
Clean URL structure
Keep a clean URL structure of your website; short and consistent. For instance, instead of _ (underscore) user -(hyphen). This makes it simpler for humans to read the URL. Also, search engines like Google recommend hyphens instead of underscores for web crawlers to compute the information.
Canonical
A canonical tag is a means of informing search engines that a specific URL describes the master copy of a page.
Search engines might look at http://xyz.com, http://www.xyz.com, https://xyz.com, and https://www.xyz..com as separate websites. It means that if the URL structure is not canonical, it could cause duplicate content issues.
Secure URL
S refers to secure in https://xyz.com. https indicates that the connection between the server and end-user is protected with an SSL certificate. Generally, https encrypts private or sensitive data that reduces the chances of a data breach during transfer.
All other things for http:// and https:// are equal. An SSL certificate is a tiebreaker in search rankings and the future of the web. It is advisable to purchase a security certificate for your website.
#3. Web page speed
Faster web pages are more effective and present a much better on-page user experience. Also, it improves search index rankings. A web site that is optimized for technical SEO should be faster loading pages.
Here are the factors that slow down a site speed;
- Unused codes
- Too many JavaScript scripts
- Large files
- Heavy images
Hence, consider these factors and resolve the issue accordingly. And, allow your website to load faster. According to Google, your website speed index should be less than 3 seconds.
#4. Metadata
The meta data is an essential factor of the On page SEO, which describes the details about the data on a web page.
Meta title and description
The title and description give an overview to search engines and users about a particular webpage. Search engines can display the most accurate search results with the help of information through the meta title and meta description.
H1
H1 is the heading tag, the most important one. It informs the users and search engine about the content of web pages. Hence, make sure to create a unique, substantial, compelling h1 tag, and improve search ranking positioning.
ALT tag
The ALT tag specifies an alternate text for an area if the image cannot be presented. Images on a website should have text descriptions (ALT tag). So, when the image is not displayed, the search engine or user can get context about the image. Each image on the website should include an alt text description of 125 characters.
#5. Schema markup
Schema markup is a form of microdata. It is an improved description (rich snippet) that appears in search results. The search engines will use the information you provide to know what your data means. They match provided details in microdata and display results for a user’s search query.
A well-managed schema markup boosts the chance of displaying the right result for the (SERPs) Search Engine Results Pages. Schema markup helps in improving user experience too.
Follow the factors mentioned above and check whether your website has all the aspects of technical SEO. Technical SEO includes indexability, crawlability, rankability, and accessibility.
If a website is technically sound, it should have the following characteristics;
- A site with faster web page loading
- It has semantic optimization without duplicate contents
- Structured robot.txt files
- Simple internal linking structures to promote web pages
- Simple architecture for search engine robots to crawl a site
- A website with zero dead links
- A website has secure structured data
- Easily accessible XML sitemaps
A website with optimized technical SEO is one of the must requirements these days. It helps in improving the visibility online. Not only search engines but also your potential customers can easily access a site optimized for technical SEO. Most of the time, it is easier to make little changes for the technical search engine optimization of a website.
However, you should seek expert advice for efficient and impactful results. The SEO experts at PeddleWeb can collaborate with you to deliver the most effective technical SEO results. We help our clients to make their site visible, accessible, and simpler for both; search engines and users.
Let’s connect to know more about how we serve top-notch SEO services!
