If you want your Google rankings to be good, then it is important to master the art of technical SEO. Or, at least engage with an agency that can master this for you on your behalf.
When it comes to technical SEO, you will want to ensure that you have all your ducks in a row before Google does an SEO audit on you. This means that you will want to have your website optimized, ensure that your content is not duplicated and have a brilliant sitemap.
While many people are a bit intimidated by the term technical SEO and think that its not for them, we are here to state quite the contrary. Not only is technical SEO pretty easy and straightforward to do, but there are some great companies out there who can help you enhance all aspects of your SEO performance.
It is important to remember that there is actually no such thing as the perfect website. In fact, there is always room for improvement. This means that even the most reputable and established brands will have the occasional broken link or a duplicated piece of content.
So why not perform an audit of your website before Google has a chance to and ensure that all the technical SEO components are up to par?
To help with the audit, we have rounded up the top components to look out for on your website when it comes to technical SEO.
1. Run a Crawl Report
A crawl report is essentially a website audit. Running this type of report will provide you with a deep level of insight in terms of errors that can be prohibiting your website from performing well. A crawl report will actually give you a list of the most pressing issues that it recommends you fix in terms of technical SEO—which usually involves missing headers, duplicated content or really slow page speed.
In general, you should do a crawl report at least once a month to ensure that there are no new errors and that your website continues to be as optimized as possible.
2. Check Your HTTPS Codes
Fun fact, your website will not show up on Google searches if you have an “HTTP” URL. In fact, you will want your URLs to have HTTPS codes instead. The latest technical SEO advice is that doing so will really help your website rank well on Google search enginrs.
Doing so can be a bit of a labor of love though. You will not only need to check for any code errors but ensure that your SSL certificate is also correct. Write down your checklist as the process to update these codes is an art form that you do not want to mess up.
3. Analyze Your Load Time
This one is super important and ironically one that many websites overlook. The amount of time that your website or page takes to load can ultimately determine your search engine rankings and your ability to retain the attention of potential consumers.
Nearly one-quarter of websites on the internet are reported to have slow load times. This is due to the quality of imagery used, the amount of content used and the complicated nature of their web frame.
You can easily test your website’s load time on your own. But we recommend checking the load time on multiple devices that include your laptop, phone and tablet device.
4. Make it Mobile Friendly
This brings us to the next important technical aspect—making your website mobile-friendly. Often people get so caught up in making the website look pretty on a large monitor that they forget the majority of people will be visiting it on their cell phones.
This means that you will want your website to instantly adapt the texts, spaces, and imagery to fit on the smaller and narrower screen. The last thing you want is for half of your website to not show up on someone’s phone!
5. Quality Keywords Only
The more keywords you have in Google does not necessarily mean the better results you will have. In fact, Google rewards quality keywords. This technical SEO aspect is something that you will want to put a lot of research and time into. Pick the best few keywords so Google does not get overwhelmed and you do not get punished for being overzealous.
6. Check On Google
This technical SEO trick is something that many people do not actually think to do. But when determining how your website is performing and the technical SEO aspects you need to work on, do not forget to try a basic Google search first. You will get a real-time view of what others see when they plug in similar keywords as you and show you who your competitors really are.
Conclusion
These six technical SEO aspects are something that you can master and perfect to enhance your website’s overall performance.