Technical SEO Basic

To remain competitive across any industry, businesses need to have a strong online presence. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of boosting your website’s ranking in search results, promoting organic traffic, and improving your online success. Technical SEO services work on the foundation of your website, ensuring it’s optimized for search engines to crawl, understand and index effectively.

What Is Technical SEO?

SEO is an essential component of any successful online marketing strategy. An SEO company optimizes websites to rank higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases. This attracts more organic traffic, increases brand awareness and promotes better conversion rates. 

While on-page SEO enhances content and off-page SEO focuses on link building SEO services and promotion, technical SEO ensures that search engines can effectively crawl, understand and rank your website. Without proper technical SEO, even the most well-crafted content and link building efforts won’t help your pages rank in the SERPs.

The Six Basics of Technical SEO

To ensure your website is technically sound and search engine-friendly, you need to address the following six fundamental aspects of technical SEO services:

1. Site Speed

Site speed is essential for both SEO and user experience. Slow-loading websites frustrate users, leading to higher bounce rates and lower conversions. Search engines prioritize fast-loading sites because they provide a better user experience. This means they are more likely to rank higher in search results. 

To evaluate and improve your business’s site speed, consider the following tips:

  • Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and WebPageTest to analyze your site’s performance.
  • Optimize images by compressing file sizes and using the right formats like JPEG or PNG.
  • Turn on browser caching to let visitors’ browsers store parts of your site so it loads faster the next time they visit.
  • Make your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files smaller by eliminating extra spaces and lines they don’t need (minifying).

2. Mobile-Friendliness

With 60.67% of internet traffic now coming from mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. Search engines prioritize mobile-friendly sites in their search results and a poor mobile experience can negatively affect your rankings. 

You can check how mobile-friendly your site is by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. Depending on what you find, you might want to switch to a responsive design, which automatically adjusts your site to look good on any screen size or even make a separate version of your site just for mobile users.

3. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol for your website. It scrambles the information going back and forth between your site and its visitors, keeping passwords and credit card numbers safe from hackers and other cyber threats. Search engines prefer secure websites, and an SSL certificate is a must-have for e-commerce sites and any website that handles user data and personal information. 

To switch a website from HTTP to HTTPS, follow these steps:

  • Get an SSL certificate from a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).
  • Install the SSL certificate on your web server.
  • Configure your server to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS.
  • Update all internal links and resources to use HTTPS URLs.
  • Submit the updated HTTPS site to search engines so they can update how they list your site.
  • Keep an eye out for any problems and ensure any links from other sites to yours are updated to HTTPS.

4. Structured Data Markup

Structured data markup, like those found at Schema.org, is a way to explain your website’s content to search engines in a language they understand. This extra step can make your website stand out in search results by adding features like rich snippets, which are detailed pieces of information below search results or knowledge graphs, which provide summaries for searches about companies, people and things.

Adding structured data to your site can improve click-through rates because people get a better preview of what your business is about right from the search page. It helps users understand your website better and find what they’re looking for.

5. XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages and content on your website, making it easier for search engines to discover and crawl your content. Creating and submitting an XML sitemap to search engines can improve the indexing of your website’s pages, ensuring that search engines are aware of all your content and can properly rank it in SERPs.

6. Canonical URLs

Canonical URLs are a way to tell search engines which version of a URL you want them to pay attention to when you have the same content showing up at more than one web address. Search engines can get confused about which version to show in search results without a clear choice.

Using canonical URLs makes it clear to search engines which version of your page is the main one, helping dodge any issues with duplicate content. This means you’re less likely to face penalties for having the same information in more than one place on your site.

Improve Your Website Visibility with SearchX

As a leading SEO company, SearchX offers comprehensive technical SEO services to ensure your website is optimized for search engines and delivers an exceptional user experience. Partner with our professional technical SEO agency to unlock your site’s full potential, overcome technical barriers and achieve sustainable online success.