What Is Technical SEO & How to Do It Properly? | the Complete Guideline
When we optimize all the technical stuff of a website so that Google can crawl, index, and rank it properly, it is called Technical SEO. We perform technical tasks primarily for search engine bots so they can better understand our website.
If you’re using a CMS platform, you might be able to handle some tasks on your own, but a developer is still necessary for the majority of the work.
By the way, if you want an SEO agency to do technical SEO for you, you can consider us. You can visit our SEO service page or call this number (+4654522222). But if you want to know more about it, then continue with the article.
Technical SEO Elements and Their Solutions
1. Site speed
Site speed falls under “technical SEO.” Google always prioritizes sites with fast speeds. In fact, Google rolled out an update in 2021 about the page speed where they penalized websites with slow page speeds.
So before starting your On-Page SEO speed up your website. Otherwise, you will not get the proper ranking. You can measure your page speed by using this tool.
2. Mobile Friendly
Your site has to be mobile-friendly otherwise it will never rank. In fact, now Google indexes the mobile version before the desktop one because, according to “webmaster.com” more than 60% of people use mobile phones for Google searches.
So use a mobile-friendly theme when using the CMS platform, or ask your developer to make it mobile-friendly if it is a PHP site. Use this tool to know if your website is mobile-friendly or not.
3. SSL Certificate
SSL certificate is mandatory for a website because without an SSL certificate, users’ information is not safe (name, address, phone number, credit card information, etc). So you must need an SSL certificate. To get the SSL certificate, contact your hosting company. Usually, they provide SSL certificates for free.
We also provide hosting and maintenance services, and we provide SSL certificates with our hosting plan. To know more about it visit our hosting and maintenance service page or call this number (+4654522222).
4. Indexation
See if the Google bot can crawl your website or not. If they can’t crawl your site, then they will not be able to index it. Sometimes developers disallow search engine bots to crawl your site because it’s not ready yet, but often they forget to allow it. At that time, the indexation problem happens.
The solution will allow Google bots to crawl your website. You can also submit your site to the Google search console to speed up the indexation process. You can also submit your sitemap and robots.txt to guide Google on which pages to index and which pages to ignore.
To see your current indexation status in Google, search “site:exmaple.com” in the search box, and Google will show you how many pages have they already indexed.
5. Sitemap
In simple words, a sitemap is the table of contents of a website. By submitting your sitemap to the Google search console, you are helping Google find your pages more easily. It increases the chance of your website being indexed by Google. If you submit your sitemap to the search console, Google will find new pages directly from the sitemap. So it’s beneficial for you and Google both.
If your site runs on a CMS platform, it’s very easy to create an automated site map (using SEO plugins like SEO Yoast and Rank Math), but for a custom site, ask your developer to create it manually.
6. Robots.txt
Robots.txt is the instruction file for the search engine bots. In this text file, we recommend to search engines which pages they should crawl and which pages they should ignore. We also include the site map in this instruction so that Google can find it easily.
Every website should have this file. If you don’t already have it, request it from your developer.
To see if your site has the robots.txt file or not, just write “/robots.txt” after your domain (for example: example.se/robots.txt).
If you see some instructions, then it has the robots.txt file. But if it’s not showing anything then you should submit the file.
7. 4xx Errors
4xx errors occur when Google bot remembers a URL but suddenly it gets removed. So when Google bots try to revisit the URL next time, it gets 404 errors. It provides a negative impact on our site so there should not be any 404 errors.
To solve it, developers redirect the page to a similar page or to the home page, so that there is no 404 error.
You can find the 404 errors in the Google search console
8. 5xx Error
A 5xx error happens when there is a problem on your server. You cannot do anything about the 5xx error because it’s totally a server issue. So to solve that you should contact your hosting service provider. Only they can solve it.
9. Search Engine Friendly URLs
SEO-friendly URLs are short, clean, and include keywords. Like:
a. https://www.example.com/SEO-agency
b. https://www.example.com/service/SEO-agency
c. https://www.example.com/play-basketball
d. https://www.example.com/blog/play-basketball
In example a and b the main keyword is “SEO agency” and in the example, c and d the main keyword is “how to play basketball”
Some examples of non-SEO-friendly URLs are:
a. https://www.example.com/?p=123
b. https://www.example.com/2023/01/06/play-basketball
c. https://www.example.com/2023/01/play-basketball
d. https://www.example.com/archive/123
There is no pattern and it’s included with the year, month, and date. Sometimes even include the author’s name.
So if you already have URLs like this, ask your developer to change them and do 301 redirects. So that Google bots can recognize your new URLs.
10. Image Alt Text Issue
There is a section in the image called image alt text. By default, it remains empty but you can help Google to understand the image by putting image alt text (you have to tell the search engine what the image is all about in the image alt text).
Some people put only keywords in the image alt text but it is also not a good practice. You should describe the image in the image alt text.
11. Broken Image
There should not be any kind of broken image on your website. If there are any, you should immediately replace them.
It gives a signal to the search engine that the webmaster is not concerned with his website. As a result, search engines began to deprioritize it as well.
12. Duplicate Meta Title and Meta Description Issue
It’s a major issue if you have the same meta title and meta descriptions on multiple pages, because different pages describe different things, so the title and descriptions also need to be different.
This is a common problem on eCommerce websites. When they have similar products, they often use the same meta title and description.
To solve the problem, just make them unique.
13. Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content issues are also similar to duplicate meta titles and meta descriptions. Duplicate content issues arise when a website has multiple URLs with the same content. It’s a major issue for the search engine and search engines can penalize you for it.
This is a common issue for the eCommerce websites because they need multiple URLs with the same content, like:
Suppose we sell iPhone cases and we have the same case in 3 colours.
- iPhone 14 Pro Hoco Red Case,
- iPhone 14 Pro Hoco Blue Case, and
- iPhone 14 Pro Hoco Green Case
So, in this case, we’ll have three different pages with the same content. The only difference will be their pictures.
So to solve the issue we can do 2 things. Either we remove one of the duplicate pages or we can give a canonical tag to all the pages So that Google can understand that these are all the same pages and he should rank only one (the main page) of them.
14. More Than One H1 Tag
According to John Mueller (a Google employee), there is no problem with more than one H1 tag on a webpage. But with our experiences we can say that sometimes it becomes difficult for Google to understand the main keyword of a page. So it will be wise to use only one H1 tag on one page.
If you have more than one H1 tag in an article, you should restructure your article.
15. No Anchor Text
Every link on your website should have link text or anchor text. That means there should not be any naked links.
Google wants us to write a good anchor text for every inbound and outbound link so that they can understand what the URL is all about.
If you have any naked links, find them and write good anchor texts for them. It will solve the issue.
16. Orphan Page
An orphan page is a page that has not got any internal links. Usually Google bots travel from one link to another, and in this way, they discover new pages. So to speed up your crawling and indexing process you should internally link your web pages so that Google finds them easily.
So to solve the issue, first you need to find the pages that have any internal links and after that, you have to link them from the relevant pages.
17. Broken Interlinking
When you link your web pages internally but then delete one of them, you have a broken internal link issue. So, when someone clicks on that link, they get a 404 error.
It gives search engines a negative impression of your website, and search engines begin to deprioritize it.
To fix the problem, either remove the link or redirect to a new relevant page.
18. Unnecessary Redirect Chain
An unnecessary redirect chain means when you create too many 301 redirects for no reason. Like:
In this example, we can see we have done 301 redirects from URL 1 to URL 2, URL 2 to URL 3, and so on. We can see a total of four 301 redirects here.
But we could have done only one 301 redirect in this situation. Like: 301 redirects from URL 1 to URL 5. And it would also solve the issue and deliver the same result.
If you have created unnecessary redirect chains on web pages like this, then the Google bot might not index the final URL at all because too much redirection feels suspicious.
To solve the issue find the pages with unnecessary redirect chan and create only one 301 redirect. It will solve the problem.
Final Words
Hope now you have a complete idea of what technical SEO is and how to do it properly. After you’ve completed technical SEO, you’re ready to move on to on-page SEO.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or call this number (+4654522222).
