Technical SEO refers to the behind-the-scenes elements that power your website, such as mobile optimization, page speed and architecture. Choosing an experienced web developer will give you a head start on a quality website with good SEO. But as your site grows and changes, there are things you can do to ensure your technical SEO is on point.
Below are the technical areas of your site that you should focus on. When your site is technically optimized, it will appeal to both the search engines and to users.
1. Make Sure Google Can Index Your Pages
First, you want to make sure that the search engines can properly crawl and index your pages. To find out how many pages are indexed by Google, use Google Search Console.
If the number of indexed pages is significantly less than the total number of pages on your site, this means that some pages are blocked from indexing. Check your robots.txt file and crawl your website with a web crawler tool like Screaming Frog.
2. Determine Your Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is defined as the number of visits from a search engine bot to a website during a specific period of time. For instance, if Google bots visit your website 900 times a month, 900 is your monthly crawl budget.
To ensure that the Google bots are crawling as many pages as possible, make sure that no pages are blocked, avoid long redirect chains, clean your sitemap, fix broken pages and maintain good site structure.
3. Improve Your Page Speed
Site speed plays a major role in user experience. A one-second delay can cause you to lose significant traffic. There are dozens of optimization tips for speeding up your website, and about 5-6 of them require the most attention:
- Choose a responsive web theme
- Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML
- Compress images
- Improve server response time
- Enable browser caching
- Avoid too many redirects
4. Ensure a Mobile Friendly Website
As the number of mobile searches has grown exponentially, it’s imperative that your website is mobile friendly. Choosing a mobile-friendly web theme is the best way to ensure this, but there are other elements that can improve your site further.
Start by running Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool to see what pages need work. For instance, you may need to change the size of your text or buttons, use certain plugins, apply hamburger or accordion menus, choose expandable boxes and more.
5. Pay Attention to Site Structure and Navigation
Another technical aspect of SEO is your site’s structure and navigation. Good navigation allows users to find the information they need quickly and efficiently. Plus, a good site structure brings more traffic to other important pages on your site. To improve both, practice good internal linking and include a sitemap.
By focusing on these five elements, you can master technical SEO. However, a good website always starts with the right framework. To discuss your web performance and ways to improve it, contact Magna Technology today.
