Technical SEO is what makes it possible for search engines to crawl and index your website and effectively understand the content on your website. Essentially, it’s the foundation of your website’s visibility in search results. A technically sound website ensures that search engine bots can efficiently crawl and index your pages, which is crucial for ranking well.
Common issues range from slow page speed and broken links to complex site architecture and mobile usability problems. These hurdles can prevent even the highest-quality content from being seen.
Your website might have a number of technical SEO issues, leading to confusion regarding which to prioritise first. We’ll provide a clear framework for auditing your site and identifying the most critical fixes that will offer the biggest return on your SEO investment.
In this article, we’ll unpack technical SEO and how to fix these issues on your website.
1. Fix Crawlability and Indexing First
Before anything else, you must make sure search engines can access your site. This is done by improving crawlability. You can have great content, but if Google cannot find or index it, it will not rank.
Start with Google Search Console. Use it to check which pages are indexed and which are not. Pages marked as “excluded” or “not indexed” need attention.
A common issue is accidental blocking. This often happens through:
- Incorrect robots.txt settings
- Noindex tags left behind after updates
- Pages removed during redesigns
Internal linking is crucial. If your pages are not linked properly, search engines may ignore them. Make sure important pages are easy to reach within your site.
2. Improve Website Speed
Your website speed and page speed affect your ranking. This is because search engines analyse your page speed as part of the vetting for your ranking. Page speed also affects how users behave on your site.
If your website loads slowly, it can get frustrating for users, which causes them to leave. It is that simple. Google measures speed using Core Web Vitals. These include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (loading speed)
- Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability)
Potential reasons why websites struggle with speed:
- Large image files
- Too many scripts
- Poor hosting performance
To fix your website speed, consider compressing images and removing unused code, as this can improve load time quickly. Additionally, you might want to look into the type of website hosting you have. If your server is slow, then your entire site suffers.
3. Fix Mobile Experience
Many users will visit your site on mobile devices. Your mobile friendliness matters when it comes to how search engines rank your site based on its mobile version.
If your mobile experience is poor, your rankings and conversions will drop. To test your site’s mobile experience, look out for:
- Text that is hard to read
- Buttons that are too small
- Layouts that feel cramped
- Pop-ups that block the screen
Mobile usability errors often come from small details. For example, links placed too close together can frustrate users.
Another issue is mobile page speed. Even if your desktop site performs well, mobile users may still experience delays. Simplify your design where possible. Reduce heavy elements and focus on clarity.
A simple fix can make a big difference. One business saw an increase in leads after fixing a broken mobile form that had gone unnoticed.
4. Resolve Technical Errors That Affect Performance
Once your site can be crawled and loads quickly, focus on cleaning up technical errors. These issues may not seem urgent, but they reduce your overall SEO performance over time. Start with broken links. These create a poor experience and waste crawl resources. Next, check for duplicate content. This often happens with product pages or filtered URLs.
Use canonical tags to tell search engines which version of a page should be indexed. Redirect issues are also common. Avoid long redirect chains. They slow down both users and search engines.
Structured data is another area where many businesses miss out. Adding schema markup helps search engines understand your content better. It can also improve how your pages appear in search results. This is not just technical work. It directly affects how visible your business is online.
5. Improve Site Structure for Better Rankings
Your site structure affects how both users and search engines navigate your content. A clear structure makes it easier for pages to rank.
Your homepage should lead to main categories, like “Products”, “Services”, or “Blog”. These categories should link to more detailed pages, such as specific product listings, service descriptions, or individual blog posts.
Make important pages easy to find. Pages that take too many clicks won’t do well. Use a simple structure.
Breadcrumbs also help SEO. Breadcrumbs show the user where they are within a website’s hierarchy. For instance, on an e-commerce site, a user might see a breadcrumb trail like: Home > Electronics > Televisions > 4K Ultra HD. Breadcrumbs improve navigation and add internal links that support SEO. When related pages are grouped and linked together, search engines understand your expertise more clearly.
This can improve rankings across your entire site.
6. Monitor Technical SEO Over Time
Technical SEO is not a one-off task; it needs regular attention. This is because websites change regularly when there are updates or new pages are added.
Use tools like SE Ranking to audit your website. Website audits allow you to identify issues like broken links or slow pages. Additionally, listen to your users.
If customers complain about slow load times or broken features, take it seriously. These signals often highlight problems before the data does.
WherE TO Start WITH TECHNICAL SEO?
Focus your technical SEO on the user impact of your current website. How does technical SEO affect the user experience?
TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST
To prioritise your technical SEO fixes for maximum impact, start with the following checklist:
- Prioritise Crawlability and Indexing: If search engines can’t find and understand your content, nothing else matters. Ensure your robots.txt is configured correctly and your most important pages are included in your sitemap.
- Fix Page Speed and Core Web Vitals (CWV): Slow loading times directly impact user experience and rankings. Focus on optimising images, leveraging browser caching, and improving the key Core Web Vitals metrics (LCP, FID, CLS).
- Improve Mobile Experience and Responsiveness: Since most traffic is now mobile, your site must be perfectly responsive. Test your site using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
- Clean Up Errors and Refine Your Structure (Site Architecture): Regularly fix broken links (404 errors), resolve duplicate content issues (using canonical tags), and ensure your internal linking structure is logical and helps users and search engines navigate the site.
Trying to fix everything at once often leads to confusion. This is why we need SEO tools. SEO is a multidisciplinary process that requires different phases for web development and content development. Using the right SEO tools, you can create a simple, step-by-step approach to improve your technical SEO for your business website.