
Technical SEO - What’s Behind the Scenes! - Part 5
We have now made it to the fifth part of our comprehensive SEO training.
Till now, we were talking about the visible elements of a website in our on-page SEO guide. It optimizes the content on your website, giving search engines a brief overview of your brand.
Today, we’ll tell you what happens behind the scenes - technical optimization. It is also known as technical on-page SEO as it deals with the technical aspects of a website. All the elements ON your website are visible to the search engines and your audience only because of technical SEO.
Let’s get started.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the process of making your website crawlable, indexable, and renderable by the search engines. It looks after the site architecture, page speed, XML sitemaps, duplicate content and other similar elements of your website.
Let’s ensure that your website is technically optimized for search engines.
Have an SSL certificate
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypts the communication between a web server and a browser to ensure the security of your website. You can either install the certificate on your server or have your server manager or IT department set it up for you. It will change your site URL from http:// to https://.
Mobile Optimize your website
Google prefers mobile-responsive websites over non-responsive sites. If your website renders effectively on every device, Google tags it as sensitive. Moreover, while indexing, Google follows the “mobile-first” approach to collect URLs.
Improve your website speed
Website speed is one of the favorite ranking factors of search engines. To optimize your page speed, you’ll need:
-
Fast hosting and DNS provider
-
Minimum HTTP requests and one CSS stylesheet
-
Compressed web pages and reduced images
-
Minimized website code.
Eliminate duplicate content
Search engines hate duplicate content as it can confuse the search algorithms and can be regarded as a practice of manipulating rankings.
To skip creating duplicate content, you can:
-
Prevent your CMS (content management system) from publishing multiple pages or post versions
-
Use the canonical link element to help search engines spot the original version of your content.
Add an XML sitemap
An XML sitemap allows search engines to navigate your web pages while informing when each of them was last modified, how frequently they are updated, and their priorities. This improves the chances of all your web pages getting crawled and indexed by the search engines.
Embed the structured data markup code
Structured data markup can help search engines to index your website efficiently while improving your rankings with “rich snippets.” It highlights more useful information to the users and hence increases your click-through rate (CTR).
Register with Google Search Console
Before you launch your website, submit the XML sitemap to Google Search Console to allow crawling your site and display it in the search results. You can even test your website’s mobile usability, access search analytics, view backlinks, avoid spamming links, and more with Google Search Console.
Technical SEO forms the base of your website, allowing search engines and visitors to understand your site better. But, there’s more to SEO when it comes to crawling and indexing your website. Wait for our next post to know more about it!
Till then, our SEO experts at Iron Marketers will make sure that your website is crawlable and indexable by the search engines. Get in touch with us today!