Technical SEO refers to the optimisation of a website and its server to improve its search engine visibility. This will aid crawling by search engines like Google. Here are the key concepts of technical SEO:
1. Website Crawling and Indexing: Ensuring that search engine bots can crawl (access) and index (include in their database) all the pages of your website. This involves creating a sitemap, using a robots.txt file to control crawling, and managing the use of meta tags like “noindex” and “nofollow.”
2. Website Speed and Performance: Optimising the website’s loading speed and overall performance. Search engines favour faster websites. And they tend to provide a better user experience. Technical SEO uses techniques like image optimisation, caching, and minimising HTTP requests.
3. Mobile-Friendly Design (Responsive): With the majority of web traffic coming from mobile devices, having a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and devices is crucial. Google considers mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor.
4. SSL Security (HTTPS): Implementing SSL (Secure Socket Layer) on your website ensures that the data transmitted between the user and the server is encrypted. Search engines prefer websites with HTTPS so it can lead to higher rankings.
5. Structured Data Markup (Schema.org): Adding structured data markup to your website’s HTML helps search engines understand the content better. It enables rich snippets and featured snippets in search results. This makes your site more attractive to users and gains more clicks.
6. Canonicalisation and Duplicate Content: Using canonical tags to indicate the preferred version of a page when there are multiple versions with similar content. This helps avoid duplicate content issues that can harm search rankings.
7. XML Sitemap: Creating an XML sitemap helps search engines discover and understand the structure of your website better. It lists all the essential pages and their relationships.
8. URL Structure: Creating clear and descriptive URLs that are readable by both users and search engines. It is preferable to avoid dynamic URLs and use hyphens to separate words.
9. Robust Internal Linking: Creating a logical and well-organised internal linking structure. This will help users and search engines navigate your website. This includes using descriptive anchor text and linking to relevant pages.
10. Pagination and Pagination Elements: Managing paginated content (such as blog posts spread across multiple pages) well using rel=prev and rel=next tags.
11. 404 Error Handling: Customising 404 error pages to provide helpful information to users. Ensuring broken links are minimised.
12. Canonical Redirects and 301 Redirects: Redirecting old or duplicate content URLs to the appropriate canonical URL using 301 redirects.
13. Optimising Site Architecture: Ensuring a logical and well-organised site structure that allows search engines to understand the hierarchy of your content.
14. User Experience (UX): Creating a positive user experience by focusing on factors like clear navigation, easy-to-read content, and mobile-friendly design. Good UX can indirectly impact SEO rankings.
Remember that technical SEO is one aspect of SEO. It works hand-in-hand with on-page SEO (content optimisation) and off-page SEO (link building and promotion). Together they will improve a website’s search engine visibility and performance. Do you need help with your SEO?