The Basics of Technical SEO
5 minminutes read

The Basics of Technical SEO

When most people think of SEO, there are a few key elements that typically come to mind. 

More often than not, these include things like keyword research, backlinking and meta titles/descriptions. 

All of these techniques can make or break the success of SEO content, whether the content in question is in the form of blog posts, product pages, or otherwise. 

That being said, there’s no getting around the fact that these basic principles only scratch the surface of what is possible with a well-designed approach to SEO. 

Technical SEO, on the other hand, offers a wealth of additional bells and whistles that help to foster organic growth, including things such as mobile optimization, site architecture and page load speed. While technical SEO may not be overly exciting in nature, it can be incredibly effective when properly utilized.

So, how can you use technical SEO to your advantage? 

Here’s a simple auditing process for you to follow to ensure that your site is maximally optimized for organic search. 

What Exactly is Technical SEO?

Though definitions vary depending upon who you ask, technical SEO is generally understood as being any process that makes crawling and indexing easier and more efficient for search engines. 

Technical SEO works alongside content strategy and link-building to help bolster those strategies and improve both on-page and off-page SEO efforts. 

To further clarify:

  • On-page SEO refers to all of the content that lets search engines and readers know what to expect by visiting your web page. This includes elements such as keywords, image alt text, H1 tags, meta descriptions and internal links. 
  • Off-page SEO tells search engines how credible a web page is. This includes things such as backlink quantity and quality, each of which plays into how search engines go about ranking pages.
  • Technical SEO supports these tactics while being less intuitive and slightly more difficult to become proficient in.  

The Fundamentals and Importance of Technical SEO

Technical SEO plays an important role in optimizing for organic traffic. Even if your content is highly engaging and useful, it will have a difficult time impacting the user if no one is able to find it. 

While the umbrella of technical SEO may seem like a lot to take in, it becomes much easier to understand when broken down into digestible “chunks.” 

Before you can successfully perform an audit on your website, it helps to have a strong sense of the fundamentals of technical SEO.

Preferred Domain Auditing

When you have multiple addresses (.com, .net etc.) all leading to the same place, things can get confusing rather quickly. 

This is also true of the address that search engines use to direct visitors to your website; ie: “www.youraddress.com” vs. “youraddress.com.” 

Setting your preferred domain between the two will ensure that SEO efforts don’t get dispersed across URL variants. 

While Google formally asks users to set their preferred domains manually, the service will know to identify and choose a version to show searches for on its own. Still, you should make sure that a preferred domain has indeed been set before moving forward with SSL implementation.

SSL Implementation

Short for “Secure Socket Layer,” SSL makes websites more secure by creating a layer of encryption between a browser and the website itself. This makes it less likely that a user’s information will be compromised once submitted through the website. 

A Website that makes use of SSL can be easily identified by a tiny lock-shaped symbol in the URL bar (URLS donated by HTTPS:// as opposed to HTTP://). 

As Google prefers secure sites over the alternative when given the option, implementing SSL is extremely important for enhanced ranking. 

Page Speed Optimization

Once you’ve set your preferred domain and implemented SSL, the goal should be to achieve optimal site performance. The longer a user has to wait for a page to load, the less likely it is that they’ll actually stick around before seeking their browsing needs elsewhere. 

Site speed not only plays into user experience, however—it is also a factor in ranking that should not go overlooked.

So, how can you minimize the number of time users need to watch your pages load? Regular audits of 301 redirects can help, as can compressing all of your images to reduce their file size. 

Excess HTML can also contribute to long loading times, so don’t be afraid to trim the fat and get rid of lines that aren’t necessary. 

Finally, you might want to consider working with a content distribution network (CDN), which stores copies of your website on servers across the globe, resulting in lightning-fast load times.

The Bottom Line

Though technical SEO can be a complex and even confusing topic to cover, the basic fundamentals are easy enough to pick up and can be incorporated beautifully with solid keyword research, a clean backlink profile, and perfectly crafted meta data. 

Take the time to practice working with these basics, and a whole new world of effective SEO strategies will open up for you.

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