A Comprehensive Technical SEO Guide

By Charlie

07 Jun 2024

Let’s be honest – ranking high in search results is akin to having a neon sign screaming to potential customers. But before you can worry about fancy content or eye-catching design, you need a strong foundation. That’s where technical SEO comes in.

Technical SEO stands out as a fundamental pillar that ensures a website’s foundation is robust and search-engine friendly.

This comprehensive guide covers everything about technical SEO, offering insights and practical advice to help you navigate the complexities and skyrocket your site’s performance.

What is Technical SEO?

Think of your website as a library bursting with valuable information. Technical SEO is like giving that library a makeover to help visitors and search engines (like librarians) find the necessary knowledge.

On-page SEO focuses on the content itself. It’s like organising the books by subject and labelling them. This helps users search for that information.

Technical SEO tackles the behind-the-scenes organisation. It’s more than the content. It’s about making sure the library itself is in good shape. Technical SEO ensures the shelves are strong (clean website code), the aisles are wide and well-lit (fast and mobile-friendly website), and there’s a clear map to get around (logical website structure).

By optimising these technical aspects, you’re making it easier for search engines to find, understand, and store your website’s content. This increases the chances of your website showing up in search results when someone is looking for something related to your content. It’s like a well-organised library being more likely to get recommended by librarians!

Why Technical SEO Matters

Imagine you wrote an amazing article, packed with valuable information people are searching for. But if no one can find it, all that effort is wasted. That’s where technical SEO comes in.

Technical SEO focuses on the technical aspects of your website that search engines use to find and understand your content. Crawl errors or a non-mobile-friendly website can make it hard for search engines to access your article, let alone rank it well. This means missed opportunities – people who could enjoy your content won’t find it, and your website won’t get the traffic it deserves.

Search engines are like busy librarians with a massive amount of information to sort through. Technical SEO helps them find and categorise your website’s content. A fast, mobile-friendly website with a clear structure is like having all your information organised and labelled – the librarians can find what they’re looking for and recommend it to others (show your website in search results).

Technical SEO isn’t about pleasing search engines, though. It also plays a big role in user experience. A slow or difficult-to-use-on-phone website frustrates visitors, who may leave before seeing your fantastic content. Search engines are smart – they can tell when users aren’t happy with a website, which can hurt your ranking.

By taking care of the technical side of things, you lay the groundwork for SEO success. With a solid technical foundation, your website becomes more visible in search results, attracts more organic traffic, and gives visitors a smooth and enjoyable experience. It’s a win-win for everyone!

Technical SEO Basics

SEO can feel like a secret code, especially technical SEO. But don’t worry! Learn the basics to get your website seen by search engines and reach more people.

Technical SEO makes your website easy for search engines to find, understand, and show to users. Imagine a welcoming highway for search engine robots to find your amazing content. Here’s what matters:

Website Structure: Organise your website like a filing cabinet. A clear structure helps search engines navigate your content and understand how it connects. This helps them index your information and show it in search results.
Crawlability: Help search engine robots find every page on your website. Imagine a guide map for the crawlers so they don’t miss anything.
Indexability: Include your content in the search engine’s library (called the index). Being indexed is like getting listed in a giant phone book for websites. If a page isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in search results, no matter how good the content is.

Learning Technical SEO

To become proficient in technical SEO, continuous learning and staying updated with the latest trends are essential. Many online resources, courses, and communities can help you deepen your knowledge and skills.

Technical SEO Issues

Even the most stunning website can get lost in the online world if technical SEO isn’t in tip-top shape. Think of technical SEO as the foundation of your website’s search engine visibility. Cracks in the foundation can cause anything from minor stumbles to a complete collapse in search rankings. Here are a few common culprits to watch out for:

Broken Links: Don’t frustrate visitors with dead ends! Fix broken links to improve user experience and search engine crawling.
Duplicate Content: Avoid confusing search engines with duplicate content. Create unique and valuable content to stand out.
Slow Page Load Times: Speed is king! Make your website load fast to keep visitors happy and improve search rankings.

Identifying and Resolving Issues

Regular audits and monitoring are vital to identify and fix technical SEO issues. Tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and various SEO software can help pinpoint problems and provide actionable insights for resolution.

Technical SEO Best Practices

Craft a clear structure: Organise your website’s content like a family tree, with broad topics as categories and specifics as subcategories. This helps visitors navigate and search engines understand your site.

Link your content: Connect relevant pages with internal links, like recommending a related article to a friend. This helps visitors discover more and shows search engines your content’s connections.
Make your site speedy: Visitors hate slow websites. Optimise images, enable browser caching, and cut elements to ensure a fast-loading experience.
Mobile-first approach: Design your website to look and work on all devices, especially mobiles. Use responsive design to adjust the layout for different screens. By making your site mobile-friendly, you welcome more visitors!

Following these tips will create a website that’s enjoyable for both visitors and search engines.

Conducting Technical SEO Audits

Have you ever wondered why your website isn’t ranking as high as you’d like in search results? A technical SEO audit can be your secret weapon! It’s like a checkup for your website, designed to identify areas that might be hindering its search engine performance.

Here’s a breakdown of what a technical SEO audit is and how it works:

What is a Technical SEO Audit?

Imagine your website as a store. You want to make sure it’s easy for customers (search engines) to find your door and explore your products (content). A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis that examines the technical aspects of your website, ensuring it follows best practices and welcome search engines.

Taking Your Website for a Checkup: Steps in an Audit

Crawl Your Website: Unleash a tiny robot to scout every corner of your online store. During this step, SEO tools scan your website to identify all the pages and see if search engines can access them.
Check for Indexing Issues: Ensure your store is listed in a local directory. This step ensures that the important pages on your website are included in search engine results so potential customers can find you.
Analyse Site Speed: Just like nobody likes a slow store, search engines focus on websites that load fast. This step involves using tools to assess how fast your website is and identify areas for improvement.

Interpreting Audit Results

After conducting an audit, interpreting the results accurately is crucial. Focus on issues based on their impact on SEO performance and address them.

Assessing Your Site’s Technical SEO Health

Metrics to Monitor

Keeping your website’s technical SEO healthy is like keeping yourself healthy – it needs regular checkups. Here are three key things to track:

Fix Crawl Errors: These are like roadblocks that prevent search engines from reaching your pages. Use Google Search Console to find and fix them.
Maintain Index Coverage: Ensure all important pages are indexed in search engines (like being listed in a catalogue).
Monitor Page Speed: A slow website frustrates visitors and hurts search rankings. Regularly check and improve your page speed.

Regular Health Checks

Regular technical SEO health checks are essential to identify and fix issues before they escalate. Schedule periodic audits and check your site’s performance.

Maintaining Technical SEO Health

Maintaining the technical health of your site is an ongoing process. Stay updated with the latest SEO trends, optimise your site, and address issues promptly as they arise.

Developing a Technical SEO Strategy

Building a Comprehensive Strategy

Your technical SEO strategy is the foundation of your website, and a solid foundation is crucial for a house. It ensures search engines can easily find, understand, and present your content to users.

Here’s how to build a strong foundation:

Regular Checkups: Regularly audit your website to identify and fix technical issues.
Continuous Monitoring: Use tools to track your site’s performance and key metrics constantly.
Plan for Improvement: Develop an optimisation plan to address issues and improve your website’s structure, speed, and mobile-friendliness.

Integrating with Overall SEO Strategy

Technical SEO should not exist in isolation. Integrate it with your overall SEO strategy to ensure a cohesive approach. This includes aligning technical efforts with content creation, link building, and other SEO activities.

Measuring Success

Just like measuring the growth of plants after weeding and planting, tracking technical SEO efforts allows for assessing their impact. Here’s how to measure progress:

Website Traffic: Changes in organic traffic, which is the number of visitors coming from search engines, should be monitored. Did optimisations lead to an increase in the number of people finding the website?
Keyword Rankings: Keyword rankings should be tracked to see if technical SEO efforts boost visibility. The goal is to observe the website climb higher in search results for relevant keywords.
Conversions: Conversion rates (like purchases or sign-ups) should be tracked to see if technical SEO is helping the website achieve its goals. This can be done by assessing how user-friendly the website became after technical improvements.

Conclusion

Our technical SEO guide gives your website a chance to rank higher and reach more people. Conduct a technical SEO audit, fix any issues, and learn to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of SEO. Experiment with different strategies and track the results to optimise your website’s performance.