We’re conquering the complicated to drive the business results for our clients.
We put our clients at ease because they trust they’re in good hands with every project, every time.
We work to make an impact in the work we do and in the world around us.
If you’re looking for a partner who can help you make an impact in a big way – we’re your people.
We’re conquering the complicated to drive the business results for our clients.
We put our clients at ease because they trust they’re in good hands with every project, every time.
We work to make an impact in the work we do and in the world around us.
If you’re looking for a partner who can help you make an impact in a big way – we’re your people.
We’re conquering the complicated to drive the business results for our clients.
We put our clients at ease because they trust they’re in good hands with every project, every time.
We work to make an impact in the work we do and in the world around us.
If you’re looking for a partner who can help you make an impact in a big way – we’re your people.
We’re conquering the complicated to drive the business results for our clients.
We put our clients at ease because they trust they’re in good hands with every project, every time.
We work to make an impact in the work we do and in the world around us.
If you’re looking for a partner who can help you make an impact in a big way – we’re your people.
With technical SEO in your corner, you’ll gain more eyeballs, visitors, and potential conversions organically. Here we’ll explain why technical SEO is so important and give the hard science of SEO the standing ovation it deserves!
SEO is often called a blend of art and science. Technical SEO is where the pure science happens. It’s all about optimizing your website to make it faster, easier to find, and simple to comprehend. It’s a key part of SEO that ensures search engines can crawl, interpret, and index all the pages of your site.
Technical SEO doesn’t deal with the content of the website, or with promotion. Rather, it’s focused on the setup and configuration of the website’s infrastructure. Though changes don’t appear overnight, technical SEO improvements can be some of the first to visibly boost your site’s ranking.
A technical SEO audit is the first step in any serious SEO strategy. That’s due to a few different reasons.
In a world where everyone wants everything right away, a slow website can turn off potential customers. Technical SEO helps speed things up, making for a better user experience and lower bounce rates.
Without optimizing for crawlability, your website might not even rank or appear in search results at all. Technical SEO ensures that your site and its pages are visible and easy to parse for search engines. That way, both Google and your audience can find what they’re looking for.
With so many people browsing on their phones, having a mobile-friendly site is a must. Technical SEO makes sure your site looks great and works well on any device.
Don’t forget about structured data, which is a total game-changer. It helps search engines understand your content better, which can lead to enhanced results and more clicks.
These six best practices are the core tenets of a great technical SEO audit:
Indexing and crawling are two of the biggest pieces of the technical SEO puzzle. Website crawling is how search engines find new or updated content on the web. Indexing is the process of sorting that information into the search engines database.
A fast website is a must-have, just like coffee for a technical SEO consultant! Search engines like Google or Bing spotlight fast-loading websites to ensure a smooth user experience. By optimizing technical aspects like image sizes, CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, you can improve your website’s visibility and performance. Website page speed and performance directly affect your site’s discoverability and ranking.
There are a couple of technical SEO methods that can help improve website speed and performance:
Mobile optimization is super important in today’s digital world. More people use smartphones and tablets to access the internet than ever before. Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly risk giving users a bad experience. That can lead to higher bounce rates and lower search rankings.
Mobile optimization makes sure your site looks great, works well, and keeps people engaged no matter what device they’re using. Additionally, passing Google’s mobile friendly test.
When building or migrating a website, it’s important to have a simple, crawlable URL hierarchy with URLs that follow all best practices.
A well-structured URL should always be user-friendly and reflect what’s on the page. It’s recommended to use hyphens and keep URLs short but descriptive.
Having a website with proper architecture is a win-win for both users and search engines. It not only enhances navigation and user experience but also boosts credibility. That means improved visibility and higher rankings.
With URLs, aim for short, meaningful, and to-the-point formats. For example, ‘technical-seo.com/technical-seo-best-practices’ is more user-friendly and SEO-friendly than ‘technicalseo.com/page?id=xxy1234’. Focus on keywords relevant to the page.
Use a logical structure for categories, allowing for intuitive and easy navigation. On an eCommerce site, main categories like ‘Home’, ‘Office’, and ‘Electronics’ can have subcategories such as ‘Furniture’, ‘Appliances’, and ‘Accessories’.
Ensure your URL structure reflects your categories. This helps with user understanding and assists search engines in crawling your site better. For instance, ‘example.com/Home/furniture/chairs’ indicates specific category placement.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a nifty security technology that encrypts the connection between a web server and a browser, keeping your data confidential and intact. SSLs are like digital IDs that verify a website’s identity, making sure your browser connects securely. It not only shields websites from ominous threats but also builds trust with users by flaunting visible security indicators.
HTTPS encryption keeps hackers at bay and protects sensitive info. Plus, search engines give priority to secure websites, making SSL an absolute must for better user experience, credibility, and search rankings.
Google openly says that HTTPS is a ranking signal, meaning a secure website has a better chance of showing up higher in search results. Plus, HTTPS sites load way faster, and speed is a big deal for search engines.
From a user’s point of view, a secure website makes people feel confident, leading to more interactions, longer time on the site, more backlinks, and repeat visitors – all of which can boost SEO. And let’s not forget the little padlock icon in the address bar that shows professionalism and trust, swaying user behavior and potentially increasing conversion rates.
So, investing in a secure website isn’t just about dodging online threats – it’s a must for a well-rounded Technical SEO strategy.
XML sitemaps are like roadmaps for search engines to find and understand your website’s content. They list URLs and provide extra info, helping search engines crawl intelligently.
Especially for big websites with lots of pages, XML sitemaps are super important for search engine discovery. Just create and submit one to Google or Bing, and you’ll invite them to crawl and index your site. The result? Improved visibility in SERPs!
Robots.txt files are vital for guiding search engine bots in crawling your website. These text files are found in your site’s root directory and tell the bots which pages to visit or avoid, enabling you to control web traffic. They’re useful when excluding indexed pages like log-in or temporary pages.
To implement robots.txt, place it in the top-level directory of your web server. Bots always check this file first for instructions when accessing your site. Using robots.txt the right way is crucial for optimizing your crawl budget and prioritizing important pages for technical SEO.
On-page SEO and technical SEO share a few major factors like HTML tags, structured data, canonicalization, and duplicate content.
Title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and schema markup are all crucial for search engine understanding and website rankings.
Optimized titles improve visibility, concise meta descriptions increase click-through rates, headers divide content effectively, and schema markup enhances page meaning for improved SERP exposure and user engagement.
Title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and structured data (schema)! These four dynamic elements hold the key to raising a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Title tags, you know, those HTML elements that tell you the title of a web page? Well, they’re actually the first thing you see on search engine results pages. Pretty important. A well-crafted title tag not only boosts your SEO game, but also helps with social sharing, website navigation, and giving users a better overall experience.
It’s important to note that effective link-building and acquisition require time and effort. Allocate at least 3-4 months for link acquisition before expecting to see any improvements in your website’s backlink scores.
Meta descriptions give a summary of webpage content and show up under the title tag in SERPs. Even though they don’t directly impact rankings, a catchy meta description can boost click-through rates and bring in more organic traffic to your website.
Headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are super important for organizing your content, making it easy for readers to understand, and helping search engines too! Using headers correctly can help Google get the gist of your main points in a long post. That means a better user experience and a nice SEO boost, potentially boosting your visibility in search results. So, be sure to pay attention to using headers well to make the most impact with your content strategy.
Structured (or schema) is like a standardized format for giving info about a page and classifying the content. When you use schema, search engines can understand your content better, making you more visible in search results. Plus, you might get those eye-catching “rich snippets” or results that boost click-through rates!
Structured data: the ultimate wingman for search engines! It’s like giving them a summary of your site, boosting their indexing game. The result? “Rich snippets” with star ratings, images, or event schedules that make your listing irresistible and informative.
Schema markup is a secret weapon for technical SEO – it helps search engines understand your website’s content better. This can really amp up your site’s position in search results.
Different businesses need different types of schema markups, like articles, FAQs, events, and products. There are over thirty kinds of rich results on Google alone, so most content is now suitable for some type of schema markup.
Adding the right schema markup can improve search results and get you those coveted rich results too. Just remember, it’s a long-term strategy, not a quick fix.
In concert? Your technical SEO agency can bring on some serious SEO solutions.
Canonical tags, or “rel=canonical,” are essential for resolving duplicate content issues on web pages. By specifying a preferred or original version of a page, these tags guide search engines and consolidate the SEO value on that chosen page.
Without canonical tags, search engines may struggle to determine the most relevant content, leading to suboptimal results.
Effectively handling duplicate content is crucial for avoiding SEO penalties. Decide on a canonical URL and add the canonical tag to non-canonical versions. Remember, removing duplicate content may not always be necessary, so using the canonical tag is often the best solution.
How your users feel on your website can make a big difference to your SEO rankings. Is your site easy to navigate? Technical SEO makes sure your website is both accessible and a pleasure to use.
For a website to be accessible, it must be easily navigated and understood by users of all abilities. By making your website accessible, you not only reach a wider audience but also improve its usability for everyone.
Investing in accessibility is not just a matter of inclusivity and fairness— it’s also a smart business decision that can enhance your site’s SEO performance. Adhering to accessibility guidelines makes your site easier for search engine bots to crawl, understand, and index, which can improve your search engine rankings. Clear and concise language on accessible sites also improves keyword optimization.
Achieving website compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) involves several key steps:
Remember, ensuring WCAG compliance not only enhances the user experience, but also boosts your website’s technical SEO, making your content more findable for all users.
When it comes to a website’s user experience, factors like loading speed, easy navigation, mobile compatibility, great content, and appealing design really make a difference. All of these play a role in whether visitors stick around or bounce away.
To nail a successful SEO strategy, you need to align technical search engine optimizations with what users actually want. It’s all about focusing on key areas like mobile-first indexing, optimizing for mobile, and implementing structured data. These tactics can really level up your search listings and give users an awesome experience.
Looking ahead, a few changes in search engine algorithms are anticipated that will invariably shape the landscape of Technical SEO. Here are a few trends to keep an eye on:
Technical SEO can get somewhat… uh… technical sometimes. Between the vocabulary and the number of factors that go into a technical SEO audit, it’s clear there are a lot of details that go into this hard science approach to SEO.
Why is technical SEO important? We hope we’ve given you a better understanding of the impact of things like website speed, SSL certificates, mobile-optimized design, and XML sitemaps on your website’s SERP rankings. We explained the importance of HTML tags, schema, and canonicalization to your site’s on-page technical SEO. We talked about the essential aspects of accessibility and user experience, as well as how to align the needs of our users with the needs of our search engine crawlers. Finally, we talked about a few predicted changes to search algorithms and their potential impact on the process of technical SEO.
If you want to improve your site’s visibility, discoverability, legibility, crawlability, and wow-ability, don’t give technical SEO a pass.
It’s a hard science, but someone has to do it! At Be Found Online, we tackle technical SEO with a team of experts to bring your business to the top of the charts. Contact us today and let’s create your custom strategy for success. Embrace the power of technical SEO with Be Found Online.