Today we will know about some of the technical SEO checklists. But what is technical SEO? Whenever we talk about SEO, mostly our focus is ON page and OFF page SEO. However, we ignore technical SEO. So we’ll get to know it and some of its checklists.
When we talk about ranking a website, ON page SEO is a must, and then comes OFF page SEO. If OFF page SEO is ignored, the website will still rank. For example, you have not created any backlinks, yet you can rank a website based on only ON page SEO.
However, when it comes to technical SEO, and you have not implemented it on the website, it is challenging to rank the website.
Table of Contents
First of all, how does technical SEO help us?
It improves the crawlability of a website. An essential thing for a site is to get crawled quickly. That is why we have to make our website crawling-friendly.
The primary objective of technical SEO is that our website gets crawled easily and in a better way. The architecture of our website should be crawl friendly. So all the activities we do to crawl our website smoothly and efficiently come under technical SEO.
Some of the technical SEO checklists
1] Site structure – it should be organized
The site structure should be organized. What does it mean? For example, we have 3 categories on our website SEO, Affiliate Marketing, SMM. We will write SEO-related articles in the category of SEO, and in the rest of the categories, we will write articles related to those categories.
Nevertheless, putting SEO-related articles in Affiliate Marketing and SMM articles in SEO categories is not the correct site structure.
2] Following proper URL structure
This is also a part of the site structure. Just like we add related articles in that particular category, the URL structure should also indicate the same.
For example
1- xyz.com/SEO/What is on page SEO
2- xyz.com/SEO/How to write SEO friendly articles
3- xyz.com/SEO/How to start affiliate marketing
1 & 2 follow proper URL structure, but 3 is not because the articles are not related to that particular category, and it confuses both crawler and reader.
3] Check the crawling related issues in the Google search console
To check if our website pages have been indexed, we can log into the Google Search Console using a valid Google account and enter the URL of the webpage we want to check. It also tells us the issues for which our website is not indexed.
4] XML Sitemaps
This feature is mainly for crawlers and not for users. It is a file that tells the crawler about the overall structure of our website. It is nothing but a file that keeps several pages, posts, and categories present on our website. So do submit the XML sitemap.
5] Robots.txt
It is a file that helps search engine crawlers decide what pages to crawl and what not to crawl. It is mainly done to avoid overloading the website with crawling requests.
6] Mobile Friendliness
Mobile friendliness or mobile responsive websites are easily and readily accessible on any device like tablets, desktops, and mobiles.
Google also has its mobile friendliness testing tool. Check here – https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
One of the main factors for non-friendly mobile devices is the theme that we use for our website. Some themes are not mobile friendly. See that the theme used is responsive on all the devices.
7] No Index Tag
When you want your website page to be not shown in SERP, you can put it in the No index tag. Categories are usually put into a no-index tag to prevent the issue of duplicate content. You can do the same for any page on your website that you no longer think is required.
8] Canonical URL implementation
When a single page on a website can be accessed using multiple URLs, Google gets confused about which URL to crawl. This causes duplicate content issues. In such a case, you can tell Google which URL to prefer. In other terms, it is called a canonical URL.
Consider a website can be accessed using all these URLs
xyz.com
www.xyz.com
http://xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com/
From the user’s perspective, they are all the same. But for search engines, they are four different URLs. So with canonicalization, we tell google that no matter which URL users type in, only a specific URL we want google to rank and index, which can be xyz.com.
9] Optimize 404 pages
When we delete a page on a website and anyone visits that page using the exiting link, it shows a 404 error. It is not a good sign from an SEO perspective. Every page on a website should be easily accessible.
These 404 pages create errors from a technical point of view. So optimize these 404 pages. The best thing is to redirect all these 404 pages to other similar pages.
10] Add SSL certificate
SSL certificate tells if our website is secure to use. It was not of much importance before. However, google’s new update has made it an essential factor in SEO ranking.
Also, from the user’s point of view, when someone wants to purchase something from our website or give their detail, they might not want to do it because there is no trust when our website is not secure. Hence we lose potential customers.
http:// xyz.com – not secure
https://xyz.com – Secure
11] website speed
When we use large images on a website, videos, or many plugins, the website speed decreases. When it decreases, user experience is terrible, and visitors tend to leave the website and hence the bounce rate also increases. So the website’s speed must be good.
Use tinypng.com to compress the size of images. Delete unnecessary plugins and use good hosting. Hosting plays a vital role in increasing the speed of any website. There are many hosting plans available at cheap rates in the market.
However, in the long run, they eventually decrease the speed of a website. So buy a hosting that will keep the website safe, secure, and fast.
Some of the best hosting plans include
Hostinger – Affordable hosting plans
Dreamhost – Affordable in terms of a monthly plan
Bluehost – Best for beginners
SiteGround – Makes the site speedy & secure
WPEngine – Best managed hosting
A2 Hosting – Fast and considered to be reliable
Hostgator – Good for lean or minimal needs
GreenGeeks – Eco-friendly hosting
Nexcess – Best for scaling and growth
InMotion – Best VPS hosting
Following all these technical SEO checklists will help boost the website rank.
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Frequently asked questions
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What is technical SEO?
It is a method of optimization that helps google spiders crawl and index sites effectively.
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How important is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is as important as ON page or OFF page SEO. Without doing technical SEO, websites will not be crawled and indexed.
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What is a technical SEO specialist?
An SEO specialist optimizes a website technically to help Google crawl and index the website faster.