Technical SEO involves improving crucial technical aspects of a website to help search engine bots crawl and evaluate web pages. It involves a thorough understanding of factors like site speed, URL structure, website structure, structured data and schema markup, XML sitemap, robots.txt, and more.
All this may sound complex.
But you aren’t alone.
Most SEOs (especially who are new to web development and programming) find technical SEO challenging. But when done right, technical SEO makes sure that web crawlers like Googlebot effectively crawl, understand, and index website content. This contributes to improved rankings in SERPs, online visibility, organic traffic, and user engagement.
The ever-changing world of technical SEO can be confusing to navigate. Especially when there’s a long list of technical SEO factors to pay attention to. But amidst this sea of factors, we have the main ones we would like to get your attention to.
In this guide, we will arm you with the essential knowledge on technical SEO, leaving you with a clear idea of how to run an effective SEO strategy. We will focus on the top factors, thus demystifying technical SEO for you.
Let’s get started!
Page Speed: It determines how fast your site loads and is a ranking signal. Fast-loading websites are imperative to a seamless user experience.
Crawl Budget: This estimates the number of pages Googlebots and other web crawlers crawl and index within a timeframe. Optimizing the crawl budget can ensure the crawlers crawl all the valuable content.
URL Structure: A well-optimized, easy-to-understand URL structure with significant keywords can boost user experience and rankings in search engines.
Robots.txt: They instruct crawlers on what pages to crawl and avoid.
Mobile Responsiveness: Since search engines prioritize mobile-friendly sites, including a mobile-responsive web design can boost online visibility and user experience.
Content Performance: Content performance analysis can help identify top/ poor-performing or duplicate content and resolve related issues to boost technical SEO effectiveness.
Secure Socket Layer or SSL: It ensures encrypted communication between the website and its users, thus enhancing security. Since Google prioritizes web security, having an SSL certificate can boost your website’s credibility.
XML Sitemaps: They help search engines understand a site’s structure and make content discoverable. This increases the chances of achieving top rankings in SERPs.
But we’ve got you covered!
Among all the technical SEO factors, a few have the most impact on your site’s crawlability and ranking. We will demystify the top four factors that will help you seamlessly achieve your technical SEO goals.
It records an entry every time a search engine bot or user visits a page on the website and depicts how they interact with the website.
With log file analysis, you can find aspects like:
Pro Tip: Count on tools like JetOctopus Log Analyzer for in-depth file analysis. The tool is a must-have, especially for those new to the technical SEO world and looking for a simple way to implement it.
With this log analyzer, you can:
And then make the decision if these pages are legendary and not relevant anymore and close them from indexation or get them back into site structure putting the link to this page from your website.
“Impact” section will help you analyze Googlebot’s behavior at your website depending on different on-page SEO factors.
Googlebot’s behavior:
Source
With JetOctopus crawl data, you get granular insights into the existing technical issues. Leverage them to optimize your pages.
Check out this ultimate guide on log analysis to get detailed information on how you can leverage log files for SEO. This guide will make log analysis simple and clear for you.
Though it is a relatively simple document, not having clarity on how it works can cause issues that negatively affect your search presence. So, let us demystify Robots.text for you.
Notice the below-shared robots.txt file example with two rules:
In this example, the website’s sitemap file is located at:
https://www.mybusinessname.com/sitemap.xml.
Here, the user-agent Googlebot is not allowed to crawl any URL that starts with:
https://mybusinessname.com/nogooglebot/.
However, other user agents, except Googlebot, can crawl the entire site.
Using the robots.txt file helps avoid overloading a website with crawl requests and crawling of similar or unimportant pages.
Besides, it can help prevent non-public pages from appearing in search results.
Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console (GSC) to map the existence of the robots.txt file.
Go to Crawl > robots.txt Tester section, as shown in the below-shared image.
Source
Check the link “See live robots.txt” to analyze the current live state of your website’s robots.txt file.
Note: Crawlers like Googlebot obey robots.txt file instructions.
However, not all crawlers need to do this. In such instances, password-protect private files and remove unnecessary pages entirely.
Allow us to demystify this critical technical SEO factor so that you gain clarity on the issues influencing your page speed and leading to slow lead times.
Ensure your website loads within up to 1 second.
Here’re a few tips to consider.
This free-of-cost tool offers website performance scores from 0 to 100 to help you understand what factors need improvement.
Source
Pro Tip: While tools like Google Search Console (GSC) can help extract content and SEO insights, the information is pretty basic.
Count on JetOctopus Google Search Console SEO Insight Extractor to gain in-depth insights.
This state-of-the-art tool offers over a hundred data combinations and visualization charts analyzing content and overall technical SEO performance, thus offering clarity on content performance. It makes the complex task of content performance analysis simple and quick, even for those new to the world of technical SEO.
Here’s an example.
Unlike GSC, JetOctopus offers a “Page Growth Breakdown” module that provides a quick breakdown segmentation for the web pages.
Notice how users can group the pages based on impressions and click growth.
Source
Here, JetOctopus has filtered and visualized pages with:
Similarly, users can identify pages with a drop/growth in one chart (impressions, clicks, positions), overall growth and drop comparison, organic search data (per country, per device type, for a specific timeframe, etc.), and more.
Simply put, JetOctopus provides an all-in-one tool that makes technical SEO simple and effortless.
However, technical SEO is a relentless process involving a lot of effort and time. However, we are confident that the best practices shared in this post has demystified technical SEO for you.
Go ahead and implement these tactics to improve your site’s crawlability and boost its ranking and traffic.
All this may sound complex.
But you aren’t alone.
Most SEOs (especially who are new to web development and programming) find technical SEO challenging. But when done right, technical SEO makes sure that web crawlers like Googlebot effectively crawl, understand, and index website content. This contributes to improved rankings in SERPs, online visibility, organic traffic, and user engagement.
The ever-changing world of technical SEO can be confusing to navigate. Especially when there’s a long list of technical SEO factors to pay attention to. But amidst this sea of factors, we have the main ones we would like to get your attention to.
In this guide, we will arm you with the essential knowledge on technical SEO, leaving you with a clear idea of how to run an effective SEO strategy. We will focus on the top factors, thus demystifying technical SEO for you.
Let’s get started!
Key Factors to Strengthen Your Technical SEO Game
Here are the key factors to consider when implementing technical SEO best practices.Page Speed: It determines how fast your site loads and is a ranking signal. Fast-loading websites are imperative to a seamless user experience.
Crawl Budget: This estimates the number of pages Googlebots and other web crawlers crawl and index within a timeframe. Optimizing the crawl budget can ensure the crawlers crawl all the valuable content.
URL Structure: A well-optimized, easy-to-understand URL structure with significant keywords can boost user experience and rankings in search engines.
Robots.txt: They instruct crawlers on what pages to crawl and avoid.
Mobile Responsiveness: Since search engines prioritize mobile-friendly sites, including a mobile-responsive web design can boost online visibility and user experience.
Content Performance: Content performance analysis can help identify top/ poor-performing or duplicate content and resolve related issues to boost technical SEO effectiveness.
Secure Socket Layer or SSL: It ensures encrypted communication between the website and its users, thus enhancing security. Since Google prioritizes web security, having an SSL certificate can boost your website’s credibility.
XML Sitemaps: They help search engines understand a site’s structure and make content discoverable. This increases the chances of achieving top rankings in SERPs.
Top 4 Technical SEO Factors to Assess
One of the toughest parts about technical SEO is prioritization. There are so many factors and best practices available on the internet that implementing technical SEO can seem as tough as a leather.But we’ve got you covered!
Among all the technical SEO factors, a few have the most impact on your site’s crawlability and ranking. We will demystify the top four factors that will help you seamlessly achieve your technical SEO goals.
#1: Log Files
Log (log file) is a text data file that comprises systematic information on users, Googlebots, and other crawlers’ visits to the website.It records an entry every time a search engine bot or user visits a page on the website and depicts how they interact with the website.
With log file analysis, you can find aspects like:
- Frequency of Googlebot crawling the website
- Uncrawled and crawled pages
- Website’s crawl budget waste
- Orphan pages, and URLs with parameters being crawled
Pro Tip: Count on tools like JetOctopus Log Analyzer for in-depth file analysis. The tool is a must-have, especially for those new to the technical SEO world and looking for a simple way to implement it.
With this log analyzer, you can:
- Visualise which part of the website is visible for Googlebot
- Identify which one is ignored and what changes can be made to attract Googlebots
- Optimize your site’s crawl budget. Identify your crawl budget waste and fix it.
- Discover what SEO optimizations truly had an impact on Site Indexability and multiply it
- Eliminate irrelevant and orphaned pages.
- Optimize the site’s structure.
- Address additional technical issues.
And then make the decision if these pages are legendary and not relevant anymore and close them from indexation or get them back into site structure putting the link to this page from your website.
“Impact” section will help you analyze Googlebot’s behavior at your website depending on different on-page SEO factors.
Googlebot’s behavior:
- By the number of internal links
- By depth
- By the number of words on a page
- By title duplications etc.
Source
With JetOctopus crawl data, you get granular insights into the existing technical issues. Leverage them to optimize your pages.
Check out this ultimate guide on log analysis to get detailed information on how you can leverage log files for SEO. This guide will make log analysis simple and clear for you.
#2: Robots.txt File
When demystifying technical SEO, we cannot not discuss Robots.text file that informs the crawler about the URLs they should or shouldn’t crawl.Though it is a relatively simple document, not having clarity on how it works can cause issues that negatively affect your search presence. So, let us demystify Robots.text for you.
Notice the below-shared robots.txt file example with two rules:
In this example, the website’s sitemap file is located at:
https://www.mybusinessname.com/sitemap.xml.
Here, the user-agent Googlebot is not allowed to crawl any URL that starts with:
https://mybusinessname.com/nogooglebot/.
However, other user agents, except Googlebot, can crawl the entire site.
Using the robots.txt file helps avoid overloading a website with crawl requests and crawling of similar or unimportant pages.
Besides, it can help prevent non-public pages from appearing in search results.
Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console (GSC) to map the existence of the robots.txt file.
Go to Crawl > robots.txt Tester section, as shown in the below-shared image.
Source
Check the link “See live robots.txt” to analyze the current live state of your website’s robots.txt file.
Note: Crawlers like Googlebot obey robots.txt file instructions.
However, not all crawlers need to do this. In such instances, password-protect private files and remove unnecessary pages entirely.
#3: Page Speed
Page speed is a crucial ranking factor for desktop and mobile searches. Often, speed optimization is challenging as it’s tough to pinpoint what’s wrong. Google PageSpeed takes various factors into account when scoring you on load time.Allow us to demystify this critical technical SEO factor so that you gain clarity on the issues influencing your page speed and leading to slow lead times.
Ensure your website loads within up to 1 second.
Here’re a few tips to consider.
- Compress the images on your website. Leverage image optimization tools like JPEG Optimizer and Imagify to ease the hassles.
- Leverage the content distribution network (CDN) to store copies of your pages on international servers. CDNs boost website leading speeds by minimizing overall data transfer amounts between the client and the CDN’s cache servers.
- Minify the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. This helps remove unnecessary whitespace and characters from code, thus minimizing file sizes and improving page loading speed.
This free-of-cost tool offers website performance scores from 0 to 100 to help you understand what factors need improvement.
Source
#4: Content Performance
A thorough content performance analysis will offer you clarity on the following:- Page Performance: Evaluate metrics like organic traffic, conversions, rankings, and more to check content quality and performance (top and underperforming pages).
- Content Gaps: Find areas of improvement and vital topics to boost website performance. This can help drive organic traffic and top rankings in SERPs.
- Technical Issues: Several issues like inaccurate metadata, poor keyword targeting, page structure, and more can hinder your content’s visibility.
Pro Tip: While tools like Google Search Console (GSC) can help extract content and SEO insights, the information is pretty basic.
Count on JetOctopus Google Search Console SEO Insight Extractor to gain in-depth insights.
This state-of-the-art tool offers over a hundred data combinations and visualization charts analyzing content and overall technical SEO performance, thus offering clarity on content performance. It makes the complex task of content performance analysis simple and quick, even for those new to the world of technical SEO.
Here’s an example.
Unlike GSC, JetOctopus offers a “Page Growth Breakdown” module that provides a quick breakdown segmentation for the web pages.
Notice how users can group the pages based on impressions and click growth.
Source
Here, JetOctopus has filtered and visualized pages with:
- 11-100 click/impression growth (over a given period of time)
- 101-1000 click/impressions growth (over a given period of time)
- 1001> click/impression growth (over a given period of time)
Similarly, users can identify pages with a drop/growth in one chart (impressions, clicks, positions), overall growth and drop comparison, organic search data (per country, per device type, for a specific timeframe, etc.), and more.
Simply put, JetOctopus provides an all-in-one tool that makes technical SEO simple and effortless.
Conclusion
Working on the factors shared in this post can help improve your website’s search engine rankings, online visibility, traffic, and user experience.However, technical SEO is a relentless process involving a lot of effort and time. However, we are confident that the best practices shared in this post has demystified technical SEO for you.
Go ahead and implement these tactics to improve your site’s crawlability and boost its ranking and traffic.
