On the cusp of On Page and Off page lies the Technical SEO. A bit more complex but yet effective for user experience that makes website access faster, better and interesting. Technical SEO can boost your rankings in many ways if done right.
Technical SEO basically is health and performance of your website in terms of speed, access & user interface.
Technical SEO Includes
Robots.txt- is a text file used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and spiders. It tells web crawlers which pages to be crawled or processed and which to ignore. It plays a very crucial function for visibility of certain pages to SEO.
Robots.txt is always placed in root directory of website, case sensitive and allows indexing your website to search engines. Also it prevents duplicate content when used selectively and hides sensitive information.
Understanding and properly configuring robots.txt is essential for managing how search engines interact with your site, thus influencing your site’s SEO performance.
Click here for Introduction to robots.txt
Core Web vitals/ Page Speed Metrics
Core Web Vitals (CWV) are three metrics that measure a website’s performance, responsiveness, and visual stability:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
How quickly the main content of the page renders. For a good user experience, LCP should be less than 2.5 seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
How quickly the page responds to user input. For a fast and responsive experience, INP should be 200 milliseconds or less. Scores between 200 and 500 milliseconds are considered as “need improvement”, while anything above 500 milliseconds may result in a poor user experience.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
How much the page’s layout shifts unexpectedly as it loads. For a good user experience, CLS should be less than 0.1
CWVs can impact a website’s search engine results and are increasingly important for SEO. You can use Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) to measure a page’s CWV performance. PSI is a free tool that evaluates a webpage’s performance for both mobile and desktop devices. It also offers ideas on how to make your page faster and easier to use.
Click here for Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results
HTTPS –Site Security
Switching your website to HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is crucial not only for site security but also for improving your SEO performance. HTTPS ensures that all communications between the user’s browser and the website are encrypted, enhancing data security and trust.
HTTPS helps in ranking boost, increased security, improved user trust, referral data.
Mobile SEO
Mobile SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to ensure it performs well on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. With the increasing number of users accessing the internet via mobile devices, mobile optimization has become a crucial aspect of SEO
Importance of Mobile SEO is for Mobile-First Indexing, User Experience, Traffic and Conversions.
It includes Responsive Design, Page Speed Optimization, Mobile-Friendly Content, Viewport Configuration, Structured Data, Local SEO by Google My Business Listing, User Experience (UX).
You can test and Monitor Mobile SEO via Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, Real-Device Testing.
Advanced Mobile SEO Strategies includes Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Progressive Web Apps (PWA), Voice Search Optimization.
Avoid these mobile SEO mistakes Blocking CSS, JavaScript, or Images, Unplayable Content, Faulty Redirects.
Keyword Ranking
Keyword ranking in SEO refers to the position a webpage occupies in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a specific keyword or phrase. High keyword rankings are essential for driving organic traffic to a website, as users are more likely to click on results that appear at the top of the search results.
Keyword Ranking depends upon Relevance of content and quality. You must do keyword research and identify keywords, analyze competitors, long-tail keywords and adjust strategies by tracking performance and updating content regularly.
Advanced Strategies includes voice search optimization, featured snippets, content clusters, user engagement metrics.
Avoid- Keyword stuffing, ignoring search intent, neglecting mobile optimization, and ignoring analytics.
Bounce/Engagement Rate
Bounce rate is a metric that represents the percentage of visitors who enter a website and leave (“bounce”) rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. A high bounce rate can indicate that the site’s landing pages are not relevant or engaging to visitors. Understanding and managing bounce rate is crucial for improving user experience and SEO performance.
Engagement rate is a vital indicator of how well your content connects with your audience. By focusing on creating valuable and interactive content, maintaining consistency, and utilizing analytics tools, you can effectively measure and improve your engagement rates.
Conversions
Conversions are a key metric in determining the success of your SEO strategies. By focusing on optimizing for conversions, you ensure that the traffic driven to your site is not only high in quantity but also high in quality, leading to meaningful interactions and achieving business objectives.
SEO Audits
An SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of a website to evaluate its performance in search engine rankings. The audit identifies strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement to enhance the site’s visibility and user experience.
| Technical SEO Audit | On-Page SEO Audit | Off-Page SEO Audit |
| Site Crawlability | Keyword Optimization | Backlink Profile |
| Indexability | Content Quality | Brand Mentions |
| Site Speed | Meta Tags | Social Signals |
| Mobile-Friendliness | Internal Linking | Competitor Analysis |
| HTTPS UX Audit- Navigation, Design & Layout, Engagement Metrics | URL Structure | Content SEO Audit-Inventory, Gaps, Duplication |
| Structured Data, Canonicalization | Image Optimization | Local SEO-GMP, NAP consistency, Local Citations |
Tools for SEO Audits- Google Search Console, Google Analytics, SEMrush/Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Moz Pro etc.
Google Search Console Errors- Google Search Console (GSC) is an essential tool for monitoring and maintaining your website’s presence in Google search results. It provides detailed reports on errors and issues that can affect your site’s visibility and performance.
Common type errors are- Index Coverage Errors- Submitted URL has crawl issue, Server error (5xx), Redirect error, Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’
Sitemap Errors- Sitemap could not be read, Submitted URL not found (404),
Mobile Usability Errors- Viewport not set, Text too small to read, Clickable elements too close together
AMP HTML Errors, Structured Data Errors-Missing field, Invalid object type, Security Issues-Hacked Content, Malware Detected, Performance Issues- Slow page speed.
Schema Markup
Schema markup is code that you can use to markup certain elements of your website to help search engines understand them better. By adding local schema markup to your website, you can tell search engines exactly what your business name is, your image, your address, phone number, hours of operation and more.
Schema markup is important for SEO not because it directly impacts your rankings in search results. But because of its other benefits. First, schema markup helps search engines understand the context and content of your pages more effectively.
Click here for Schema Markup Testing Tool | Google Search Central
Hope you like this post and reading about Technical SEO.
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