technical seo

Top Most Factors of Technical SEO

Technical SEO is part of On Page SEO technique and is used to increase the SERP position in the search engine.

In Technical SEO several tasks depend on the Web Developer as many SEO Analyst experts do not know much about the coding part.  Here I’m explaining Technical SEO tasks which can be done on your own by applying the following methods.

The main technical SEO topics are:

Update robots.txt file

By default, spider will visit complete website if you have not blocked it through a robots.txt file or Meta Tag index method. You can permit it by using Allow method and block by using Disallow method.

Structure of robots.txt file:

User-agent:*
Allow: /

Each search engine has its own spider (crawler) names. If you want to know more about robots.txt Click Here.

Mobile Friendly

Before hosting a website, a test has to done to find out if the website is mobile friendly (Responsive Website) or not. Google checks each page of your website to determine if it is mobile friendly or not. Upon launch, if the website has good On Page SEO with mobile friendly features it has started ranking faster in SERP.

Have you checked whether your website is Responsive or not?  Click here to know more about responsive websites and also to test your website.

Mobile Friendly test

Website HTML and XML Sitemap

There are two types of sitemap both of which are used for a website. Html sitemap helps to identify end users (Website Visitors) by instructing as to which page is located in which section and it’s more useful for complex websites with more number of categories. XML site map is used for identifying crawler number pages available on the website and it indexes faster after all of your web pages are identified.

Click Here to know more about the usefulness of sitemap in Technical SEO and you can also generate both kinds of XML files.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

SSL technology encrypts the link between server and browser and keeps your website. SSL is helpful in boosting SEO Keywords ranking. Google has also stated that from 2018 onwards websites without https will display “not secure” in the Google Chrome Browser.

The advantages of implementing SSL on website is that it will perform well; Boost Rank, Secure and More Trust on the website.

ssl

Cloud Flare provides FREE SSL to small businesses and for blogs it’s completely FREE for Lifetime. I’m recommending this so that you can use this service for your blogs. I implemented SSL from Cloud Flare.

Structured data (Schema Tag):

If you want to increase visibility of the website in SERP try implementing schema tags for your webpages.

You can get various types of schema tags like rating, event, price, business, article, courses, brand, etc.

You can generate a schema tag by just filling information in Schema Mark-up Generator and this tool creates the code in JSON-LD & Microdata.

Test schema tags are valid for not using Structured Data Testing Tool

Several structure data examples (Schema Tags) are listed in Google Search

Schema tag Example of Upcoming Training Course

schema tag

Loading Page speed of Website

Website loading speed depends entirely on your webpage content. Web pages developed with html, CSS, JS, image and content of page including all these factors it counts size of the page and also loading time depends on these factors.

By optimizing images, files and few external requests we can reduce loading time of webpage.

Each page of the website has to test how much time it’s taking to load a complete web page and you can test this by using Google Insight and Gtmetrix tools.

Few tips to consider while loading speed optimisation

  • Page should not exceed more than 2MB (use webpage compressor).
  • Compress Html, CSS and JS files.
  • Internal links to be linked less than 100.
  • Loading speed is between 3 secs to 6 secs.
  • Add sitemap and robots.txt file.
  • Compress all images.
  • Find all factors affecting loading time using the Gtmetrix Tool.

Content optimization

Optimize content with internal links and include a couple of business keywords content. Content should be written for optimising the website and it should easily be understood by the visitors also.

Identify grammar mistakes on your website using Grammarly Tool.  Before publishing content check its uniqueness. It should be minimum 60% unique else Google will penalize. To verify if the content is unique or not try Plagiarism Checker

A few tips for Content Marketing

  • Have unique content (Minimum 70% unique).
  • Do keyword research before writing content
  • Include keywords in content
  • Internal linking is important
  • Conversional content helps voice search queries

Technical Errors:

Major errors that occur in complex websites are Broken Links and Dead Links. These errors occur due to existing page or files being deleted and the link still available within a website.

Find these errors using Broken link Checker Tool or else you can do it by using the search console inside the error section. Websites with such errors disappoint end users.

Site structure

The website structure (navigation) is important for SERP Ranking, Conversions, more Page Views and for decreasing bounce rates.  A website with good architecture has better chances of high SERP positioning.

Website structure is a part of Technical SEO and we can identify the website structure through user flow of Google Analytics report.

Optimizing Images

Optimize website images using Tinypng. Website images should never exceed 150KB in size (especially website sliding banners).  You can check whether an image needs optimisation or not by using the Gtmetrix tool.

image compress

Use Semantic Tag Structure

Before hosting a website check whether the designer or developer has used semantic tags or not. A semantic tag denotes the header portion and footer position of the website.

Common semantic tags introduced in HTML5 are:
<header>, <section>, <nav>, <section> and <footer> tags.

A website having sematic tags boosts its ranking in SERP. With semantic tags we can divide website structure into different parts like header, footer and body section.

Migrations

If you are moving your website from http to https you have to move all urls from http to https using .htaccess file by making a permanent redirection and simultaneously request in webmaster tool with https URL request.

http://www.digitalakash.com  to https://www.digitalakash.in

Verify malware files in website

If a website is hacked there are chances of having a malware file inside a root folder and attacks will repeat. You can check for malware files using sucuri tool in FREE.

You can also find information on malwares detected by using the Google Search Console.

Know cache status

You can know the cache status of your website by applying the below format in Google search engine

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:[your URL here].

About the author

Akash Tonasalli is a Digital Marketer, Web Developer, SEO Analyst, Consultant and Trainer from Bengalore, Karnataka.