The science behind search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving. What secured a top spot yesterday may be overshadowed by new criteria tomorrow. Staying ahead requires more than keywords and content; it demands mastery of technical SEO.
Technical SEO is the unseen force driving search visibility. It’s the art of optimizing your digital infrastructure to communicate effectively with search engines, ensuring your content receives the attention it deserves. From website speed to mobile-friendliness, every element is key to shaping a successful online presence.
In this comprehensive technical SEO guide, we uncover actionable strategies and insights that can help you fine-tune your webpages and outrank your competitors. In this article, we’ll delve into the following topics:
• What Is Technical SEO?
• Understanding Crawling and Indexing
• Technical vs On-Page vs Off-Page SEO: What’s the Difference?
• Your Complete Technical SEO Checklist
❖ Page Loading Time
❖ Website Functionality & Usability
❖ Content Optimization
❖ Mobile-Friendliness
Let’s dive into our technical SEO guide and unlock the full potential of your digital presence.
What Is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the process of enhancing a website’s backend elements and architecture for better search engine visibility. It involves optimizing code, improving a site’s crawlability and resolving issues like broken links and metadata errors.
A technical SEO audit is usually the first and most extensive step in any SEO campaign. It lays the groundwork for all optimization efforts by ensuring that the website’s structure, navigation and code are in optimal condition.
Without addressing technical issues first, other SEO activities, such as content optimization and link building, may not yield desired results. Therefore, prioritizing technical SEO is essential to elevate overall user experience, engagement and website performance.
Understanding Crawling and Indexing
Two critical aspects of technical SEO are crawlability and indexability, which directly impact how search engines like Google discover, interpret and rank your web pages.
Search engines use bots, also known as spiders or crawlers, to find and rank web pages. These automated programs discover websites on the internet, assess their content, follow any links on the site and gather information about the page’s relevance and quality. This data is then processed and stored in a vast database known as the index.
The index serves as the foundation for search engine algorithms to determine the most relevant and authoritative pages for specific search queries. When users conduct searches, the search engine’s algorithm sifts through the index, evaluating numerous factors such as content quality, relevance, authority and user experience to deliver the most useful results.
For your website to appear in search engine results pages (SERPs), it needs to be crawlable and indexable.
Crawlability
• Crawlability refers to how easily search engine crawlers can access and navigate your website’s content. An essential aspect of crawlability is having a well-structured website with clear navigation and URL hierarchy.
• Technical SEO strategies for improving crawlability include creating XML sitemaps, optimizing robots.txt files to guide crawler behavior and using internal linking effectively to ensure all pages are accessible.
• Issues like broken links or overly complex website structures can hinder crawlability, leading to incomplete indexing and reduced visibility in search results.
Indexability
• Indexability is about ensuring that search engines can accurately interpret your content, making them eligible to appear in relevant search results.
• Technical SEO practices that enhance indexability include optimizing meta tags (title tags and meta descriptions) with relevant keywords and information, using canonical tags to resolve duplicate content issues and implementing structured data markup for enhanced search result features. We’ll dive deeper into these later.
If your webpages aren’t readable and indexable by crawlers, you risk missing out on valuable traffic from Google’s search results. This missed opportunity translates into lost leads and revenue for your business.
Technical vs On-Page vs Off-Page SEO: What’s the Difference?
On-page, off-page and technical SEO are all equally important in advancing your search rankings. Neglecting any of these pillars can lower your rankings, which is why understanding their differences is crucial.
• On-page SEO: Involves improving website content within your control. These include headers, product descriptions and blog posts. It’s about formatting your website to match search queries, creating a positive experience for visitors and search engines alike.
• Off-page SEO: Refers to search engine marketing activities that occur outside your website. These tactics aim to enhance your website’s reputation, domain authority and relevance across the web. They include activities like link building, content marketing, guest posting, brand building and social media marketing. Neglecting off-page SEO can hinder your site’s ability to surpass higher-authority websites in search rankings, regardless of how well your on-page SEO efforts are.
• Technical SEO: Focuses on activities that aid Google bots in effectively crawling, reading and indexing all your webpages.
By combining these strategies, you create a well-rounded approach that signals to search engines that your website is trustworthy, relevant, updated and user-centric.
Your Complete Technical SEO Checklist
Now that we’ve answered, “What is technical SEO,” it’s time to put theory into action.
With Google considering over 200 ranking factors, SEO tasks can seem overwhelming. This technical SEO checklist ensures no vital step is overlooked.
Page Loading Time
Time is critical online. About 86% of marketers cite slow site speed as the top reason visitors leave a website (GoodFirms). Think with Google adds that when page load time hits 10 seconds, bounce rates can skyrocket by up to 123%.
“Fast-loading webpages are essential to your website. They affect user experience and conversion rates. You don’t want your audience to wait for more than three seconds to load your website,” said Ronnel Viloria, Thrive’s Demand Generation Lead SEO Strategist.
Google’s Speed Test offers a swift analysis of your website’s loading speed. Over the years, the tool has evolved to reveal key metrics, including:
• First Contentful Paint (FCP): Measures how long it takes for the first content element to appear on the screen. A fast FCP indicates quick initial loading and a better user experience.
• Time to Interactive (TTI): Quantifies the time it takes for a web page to become fully interactive, allowing users to engage with elements like buttons or forms. A shorter TTI improves user engagement and satisfaction.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures the amount of unexpected layout shifts that occur during page load.
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Refers to the loading time of the largest content element on the screen.
These metrics pinpoint specific areas for improvement, helping you prioritize your efforts and allocate resources effectively.
There are several things you can do to improve page loading speed:
1. Reduce Server Response Time
Server response time, also known as Time to First Byte (TTFB), is the duration from when a client requests a page in a browser to when the server responds to that request. Essentially, the better the TTFB, the higher your search ranking.
Improve TTFB by investing in a reliable and fast web hosting service. Ensure that your hosting provider has the capacity to handle your website’s data needs. Scalability is crucial, especially for commercial sites like eCommerce stores that experience traffic spikes during peak times. Your web host should be capable of scaling server resources to ensure rapid and consistent performance 24/7.
2. Optimize Image Size Without Compromising Quality
Unoptimized images are a major contributor to slow site speeds, accounting for up to 75% of a page’s weight. Images consume a significant amount of data on a webpage, causing the server to take longer to load. Minimizing the amount of downloaded data leads to faster content rendering on the screen.
• Opt for the Right Format: When aiming to reduce image size, consider using lossless formats such as PNG or TIFF. These formats preserve image quality better compared to lossy formats like JPEG.
• Maintain Aspect Ratio: Always ensure the aspect ratio (width-to-height ratio) remains intact when decreasing image size. This prevents distortion and maintains image integrity.
• Consider Cropping: Cropping a portion of an image is preferable to resizing since it does not compromise quality.
• Remove Unnecessary Metadata: Eliminate unnecessary image metadata, such as camera information and settings. This reduces image file size without affecting visual quality.
3. Minimize Render-Blocking Javascript and CSS
Render-blocking resources are static files like fonts, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. However, when the browser encounters these resources, it halts the download of other resources until these critical files are processed. This delay can lead to slower loading times, disrupting the user’s browsing experience.
By minimizing render-blocking resources, you can shorten the critical rendering path and decrease page load times. There are different ways to lower the number and impact of render-blocking resources:
• Utilize Deferred Loading: Employ techniques like async and defer attributes for scripts to allow them to load without obstructing page rendering.
• Minify and Combine Files: Reduce the number of CSS and JavaScript files by combining and minifying them. This reduces HTTP requests and file sizes, improving load times.
• Split Code Into Smaller Bundles: Divide your code into smaller bundles and load each bundle on demand or in parallel. This includes non-essential resources that can be lazy-loaded after the page has rendered or only loaded when specific features are needed.
• Remove Unused Code: Identify and eliminate unused JavaScript and CSS code to reduce bloat. WordPress offers cleanup plugins for automated removal of unused resources.
4. Decrease the Number of Resources and HTTP Requests
When a user visits your website, the server receives a request to access the necessary files. These HTTP requests directly impact the web page’s load time. Larger files result in longer response times for the requested action. Likewise, rapid and multiple requests can significantly slow down a server.
Follow these steps to check your HTTP requests:
• Open an Incognito tab in Chrome.
• Right-click and select Inspect.
• Navigate to the network subtab.
• Press F5 to refresh the page.
• This will begin monitoring the requests, and you’ll see the total number of requests at the end.
There’s no set target for HTTP requests, but it’s recommended to aim for under 100. However, the ideal number varies based on the page’s complexity and content.
Remove unnecessary resources, such as sliders, and compress the remaining ones to reduce download size. Additionally, combining CSS and JS files into a single file reduces the number of requests made to the server.
5. Establish a Browser Cache Policy
Caching is a technique wherein webpage content is placed in local storage to improve page loads. Here’s how it works: when a user first visits a site, the browser fetches content from the server. Once they revisit or hit refresh, the load time is quicker since the browser can simply retrieve the resources from its cache instead of re-downloading them from the server. This cuts down on HTTP requests, speeds up loading times and enhances user experience by rendering pages faster.
6. Address Redirects
Landing page redirects occur when a user is directed from one URL to another upon accessing a website. These redirects are often implemented when a webpage’s URL has changed permanently, ensuring that users and search engines are directed to the new URL.
Having a chain of redirects for the same page creates a redirect loop. This confuses the browser, leading to an error and preventing the page from loading correctly. Users may experience frustration and may be unable to access the desired content, resulting in a poor user experience. Additionally, search engines may struggle to index the page properly, potentially impacting SEO rankings.
Follow these technical SEO best practices for resolving redirect links:
• Evaluate your website’s redirect chains and consolidate multiple redirects into a single redirect whenever possible.
• Choose the appropriate redirect type based on the situation. Use permanent redirects (301) for permanent URL changes and temporary redirects (302) for short-term changes.
• Conduct a regular SEO technical audit of your website’s redirects to identify and address any unnecessary or outdated redirects. Remove redirects that are no longer needed or relevant to improve website performance.
Website Functionality & Usability
Google introduced the Page Experience update, which prioritizes websites that offer a seamless and enjoyable user experience. Page experience encompasses various aspects of user interaction with a webpage, excluding its content.
Negative page experiences can arise from challenges like difficult navigation or unappealing layout. These factors contribute significantly to how users perceive and engage with a website.
1. Create SEO-Friendly URL Structures
A well-structured URL provides clear information about the page’s content and purpose, making it easier for search engine bots to crawl and index. On top of that, your URL is one of the first things users see. Ensuring it’s clear, relevant and indicative of valuable content can boost clicks and engagement.
Here are technical SEO best practices for creating effective URLs:
❖ Use hyphens to separate words
Opt for hyphens (-) over underscores (_) in URLs to optimize search engine rankings and improve user readability and usability. Hyphens serve as clear separators between words, whereas underscores tend to merge words. In addition, underscores aren’t visible when the URL is published as a bare link.
Consider this example:
• An optimized URL: http://example.com/page/technical-seo-best-practices
• Not an optimized URL: http://example.com/page/technical_seo_best_practices
❖ Use lowercase letters in URLs
URLs are case-sensitive in some environments, which means that “example.com/Page” and “example.com/page” could be treated as different pages. Using lowercase consistently avoids potential confusion and ensures uniformity across your website.
Standardizing your URLs helps prevent potential linking errors within and from outside the site. Lowercase URLs are also easier for users to read and remember.
Here’s an example:
• Optimized URL: http://example.com/page/technical-seo-best-practices
• Not an optimized URL: http://example.com/page/Technical-SEO-Best-Practices
❖ Keep them short and descriptive
Opt for short, descriptive URLs, as they are easier for bots to process and understand. Avoid using unnecessary parameters, symbols or lengthy strings of characters, as they complicate the crawling process.
Ensure that your URLs use accurate and relevant category names. While high-search-volume keywords may attract traffic, they might not always align with the actual content of the page. Remember, search engines prioritize user intent and relevance.
2. Use HTTPs
HTTPS, known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, is the secure version of HTTP. It’s the primary protocol for data exchange between web browsers and websites. HTTPS encrypts data, preventing alteration or corruption during transmission and provides protection against cyberattacks.
To check if a website uses HTTPS, simply visit it and look for the “lock” icon on the address bar.
If your site does not use HTTPS, you’ll see a “Not secure” warning on the address bar. You’ll have to install an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate, which authenticates your website’s identity and establishes a secure connection for visitors.
According to Viloria, “Installing an SSL certificate to your website is the best thing you can do to safeguard your website and user information.” To purchase an SSL certificate, choose a reliable Certificate Authority (CA) like Comodo, DigiCert, GeoTrust or Let’s Encrypt.
3. Organize and Update Your Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the URLs on your website that you want to be crawled and indexed by search engines. XML sitemaps can include various attributes for each URL, such as the last modified date, priority and change frequency.
A well-structured sitemap allows search engines to easily navigate your site’s content, improving your chances of appearing in search results.
Here are ways to optimize your sitemap:
❖ Ensure your sitemap includes all important pages of your website, such as main content pages, blog posts, product pages and category pages.
❖ Create your sitemap in XML format, as it’s the standard format preferred by search engines like Google. This format provides detailed information about each URL, such as its last modified date and priority.
❖ Submit your XML sitemap to search engines using their webmaster tools or search console platforms. This helps search engines discover and index your website’s pages more effectively.
❖ Keep your sitemap updated with any new pages or changes to existing pages on your website. This ensures that search engines have the most current information about your site’s structure.
Content Optimization
Once you’ve addressed general crawlability and indexability concerns, shift your focus to content-specific matters like broken pages and internal linking.
1. Perform an SEO Technical Audit of Internal Links
Internal links create pathways for search engine crawlers to navigate through your website. Conduct a thorough technical audit SEO to ensure all important pages are accessible through internal links, avoiding these common problems:
❖ Orphaned Pages: Pages without any internal links pointing to them, making them inaccessible to search engine crawlers and users.
❖ Broken Links: Internal links that direct users to non-existent or broken pages, resulting in a poor user experience and wasted crawl budget.
❖ Poor Anchor Text Usage: Using generic or irrelevant anchor text for internal links instead of descriptive phrases that accurately represent the linked content.
❖ Overuse of NoFollow Tags: Excessive use of NoFollow tags on internal links can restrict the flow of link equity (ranking power) throughout the website, affecting SEO performance.
❖ Deep Linking Challenges: Difficulty in creating internal links to deep pages (pages nested deep within the website’s structure), leading to lower visibility and crawlability for these pages.
Analyze the overall link structure and hierarchy of your website. Implement a logical and organized hierarchy of internal links, with main pages linking to subpages and vice versa. This helps search engines understand the relationship between different pages and prioritizes important content.
Identify and fix any broken internal links within your website right away. Ensure equitable distribution of link equity (ranking power) throughout your website. Focus on internal linking strategies that pass authority and relevance to key pages, such as cornerstone content, product pages or landing pages.
2. Get Rid of Duplicate Content
When search engines encounter duplicate content, they may struggle to determine which version is the most relevant and authoritative. This can lead to indexing issues and reduced search visibility.
Likewise, if multiple pages on your site contain the same or similar content targeting the same keywords, they can compete with each other in search rankings. This can dilute the authority and ranking potential of your pages, leading to lower overall performance for targeted keywords.
Redundant content can also confuse and frustrate users who encounter multiple versions of the same information. This can impact user engagement metrics, such as bounce rates and time on page.
To address duplicate content issues in technical SEO:
❖ Add canonical tags (rel=canonical) in the HTML header of duplicate pages. These tags specify the canonical URL, indicating the preferred version of duplicate pages.
❖ Use 301 redirects. As the name suggests, redirects duplicate URLs to the canonical URL.
❖ Consolidate similar content into a single authoritative page.
❖ Avoid boilerplate content and ensure unique, valuable content across your site.
❖ Monitor your site for duplicate content using tools like Google Search Console or third-party SEO tools.
3. Use Schema Markup for SEO
Schema markup, also known as structured data markup, is a form of code added to a website’s HTML. It aids search engines in understanding the context and meaning of your content, leading to enhanced search results known as rich snippets.
“You don’t need to have coding skills to create an effective schema. You can use Google’s Structured Data Markup helper tool to make schema codes for your website. Once you have the JSON-LD markup, you can add it to the <head> section of your HTML file,” Viloria said.
Here’s how schema markup for SEO is implemented:
❖ Determine the types of content on your website that can benefit from schema markup, such as articles, products, events, customer reviews and frequently asked questions.
❖ Select the appropriate schema types or structured data vocabulary for each content type. Schema.org provides a comprehensive list of schema types that you can use.
❖ Incorporate the schema markup code directly into the HTML of your web pages. You can add schema markup using JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data), microdata or RDFa formats.
❖ After adding schema markup, use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool or other schema validators to check for errors and ensure that the markup is implemented correctly.
❖ Monitor the performance of your rich snippets or rich results in SERPs to see how schema markup for SEO is impacting your engagement rates.
Mobile-Friendliness
Over 60% of organic search visits now come from mobile devices. And according to Google, 56% of in-store shoppers used their smartphones to research products while they were in a store in the past week.
As such, it’s not surprising that mobile-friendliness is a confirmed ranking factor, with Google employing mobile-first indexing for all websites. This means web crawlers prioritize indexing the mobile version of a website’s content over its desktop counterpart.
If your site fails to deliver a smooth mobile experience, its search performance might suffer. Or worse, it could miss out on appearing in search results. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Page to check whether your site is mobile-friendly.
Follow these best practices to make sure your site is optimized for Google’s mobile-first indexing:
1. Develop a Responsive Layout
A responsive layout adjusts its size and content to suit the user’s device. It maintains optimal loading times regardless of screen size changes. By incorporating a responsive design, websites can deliver a consistent and enjoyable user experience on smartphones, tablets or desktop computers. Here are some technical SEO best practices for creating a responsive layout:
❖ Fluid Grids: Use relative units like percentages instead of fixed pixels for layout elements. This allows your site’s layout to adapt fluidly to different screen sizes.
❖ Viewport Meta Tag: Include the viewport meta tag (<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0″>) in your HTML to gain precise control over the page’s width and scaling on different devices.
❖ Media Queries: Implement media queries in your CSS to apply specific styles based on screen width, device orientation and other factors. This helps customize the user experience for different devices.
2. Avoid Pop-Ups
Mobile devices are not suited for intrusive pop-ups and interstitials due to their smaller screens. These elements disrupt user experience and are challenging to view or close.
3. Change Button Size and Placement
Buttons that are too small or poorly placed can pose usability challenges on mobile websites. Since users primarily navigate using their thumbs, buttons should be touch-screen friendly for seamless interaction.
4. Optimize Image Size and Format
Specify image dimensions (width and height attributes) in HTML to prevent layout shifts during page rendering. This ensures a smoother user experience, especially on mobile devices.
Serve different image sizes based on the device’s screen resolution and viewport size. Use srcset and sizes attributes in HTML to specify multiple image sources for different devices.
Achieve Peak Technical SEO Performance With Thrive
Search algorithms can change in the blink of an eye. That’s why navigating technical SEO demands a seasoned hand.
At Thrive, our approach goes beyond generic solutions. We start by performing a thorough technical audit SEO to find hidden opportunities and untapped potential. Then, we conduct the necessary changes and deliver ongoing support. Finally, we conduct another audit to ensure all changes are effectively crawled and indexed by search engines.
Our SEO specialists have worked with businesses of all sizes, from startups to franchises and enterprises. From on-page to local SEO, we’ve got you covered. Don’t let technical hurdles hold your website back. Contact us today to schedule an SEO technical audit.
TECHNICAL SEO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IS A TECHNICAL SEO AUDIT?
A technical SEO audit is an in-depth assessment of website health to identify issues that may be affecting its search performance and user experience. The goal is to identify issues and uncover areas for improvement, ensuring that the website meets technical standards set by search engines.
WHAT ARE COMMON TECHNICAL SEO ISSUES?
Common technical SEO issues include broken links, crawl errors, duplicate content, slow page speed, improper URL structure, missing metadata, mobile usability issues and incorrect canonicalization.
WHAT IS MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING?
Mobile-first indexing is a method where Google predominantly uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking purposes.
WHAT IS SCHEMA MARKUP AND HOW DOES IT IMPACT SEO?
Schema markup enhances your site’s indexability by providing additional context about your content to search engines. Search engines may also display rich snippets, knowledge panels or other enhanced search results based on the structured data provided by schema markup.
Appearing on rich snippets can make your content more visually appealing and informative to users, leading to higher click-through rates.
HOW CAN I MONITOR AND TRACK TECHNICAL SEO PERFORMANCE?
You may use Google Analytics, Google Search Console and various technical audit SEO tools to gain insights into website traffic, search visibility, indexing status, crawl errors and more. Monitoring these metrics allows you to identify strengths and weaknesses, enabling swift issue diagnosis and resolution.
WHAT IS A GOOD PAGESPEED SCORE?
The PageSpeed Score provided by tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix is a valuable metric for evaluating your website’s performance. While there isn’t a specific target score that applies universally to all websites, aiming for a PageSpeed Score of 90 or higher is generally recommended for optimal performance.
However, it’s essential to consider that achieving a perfect score may not always be feasible or necessary, especially for complex websites with dynamic content or third-party integrations. Instead of fixating on a specific number, focus on implementing performance optimizations that boost user experience. These may include optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, reducing server response times and implementing a content delivery network (CDN).
WHAT IS A CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK?
It is a distributed network of servers strategically located across various geographic locations to deliver web content efficiently to users. CDNs work by caching static content, such as images,
