Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website's technical infrastructure and architecture to make it more easily discoverable, crawlable, and indexable by search engines. In order to effectively monitor and track a website's performance and search engine rankings using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, it is important to follow a set of best practices and guidelines. A Technical SEO Checklist or a healthy SEO audit can help ensure that all the necessary steps are taken to optimize a website for search engines and improve its visibility in search results. By following a Technical SEO Checklist, website owners and marketers can ensure that all the necessary steps are taken to improve their website's visibility in search results and drive more traffic and conversions. So, definitely we can not ignore the Importance of technical SEO, even if you are running a ecommerce business or personal blog or online services.
10 Steps Technical SEO Checklist
Here are the steps that you need to follow to optimize your technical SEO strategy:
1. XML sitemap & robot.txt
Verify that your website is accessible to search engines by checking the robots.txt file and XML sitemap. The robots.txt file is a simple text file that tells search engines which pages or sections of your website should not be crawled. It can be accessed by adding /robots.txt to the end of your website's URL. It should be located in the root folder of your website. The XML sitemap is a file that lists all the URLs on your website, along with additional information such as the frequency of updates and the importance of each page. This allows search engines to understand the structure of your website and find all of your pages. It's important to check that these files are properly set up and don't block search engines from accessing important pages on your website.
2. HTTPS Connection
Ensure that your website is using HTTPS for secure connections. To ensure that your website is using HTTPS for secure connections, you can check the URL of your website. If it starts with "https" instead of "http", then your website is using HTTPS. You can also check the address bar of your browser, it should have a padlock symbol that indicates that your connection is secure. If your website is not using HTTPS, you can obtain an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate from a certificate authority (CA) and install it on your server. This will encrypt all the data being sent and received on your website, making it more secure for your visitors and also it will help your website to rank better in the search engine results. Implementing HTTPS is important for both user experience and SEO, as Google has announced that they give a slight ranking boost to websites that use HTTPS.
3. Page Load Speed
Optimize your website's load speed and mobile responsiveness. Improving website speed and mobile-friendliness can lead to better user experience, higher conversion rates, and even better search engine rankings. Google announced that it uses the loading speed of a website as a ranking factor, and that's why it's important to optimize your website's load speed and mobile responsiveness. Having a mobile-friendly website is crucial because more and more users are accessing websites from mobile devices. If your website is not mobile-friendly, it will be difficult to navigate, and users are more likely to leave, this can lead to a higher bounce rate, which is not good for your website's ranking. Mainly when you are running an ecommerce business technical SEO for ecommerce is important that must include building a fast and responsive website that actually drives your sales. You can check website page speed using our free Pagespeed Insights Checker tool.
4. Structure Data Optimization
Use structured data to enhance the appearance of your website in search results. Structured data, also known as schema markup, is a type of code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand the content of your pages better. When search engines understand your content better, they can display your website in a more informative and attractive way in the search results, which can lead to higher click-through rates and better search engine rankings. Google provides a Structured Data Testing Tool that allows you to test and validate your structured data before adding it to your website. It's important to validate your structured data to ensure that it's correctly implemented and that there are no errors that could affect your website's performance in the search results.
5. Site Architecture
Make sure your website has a clear hierarchy and organization to help search engines understand the structure of your content. A clear hierarchy and organization of your website's content can help search engines understand the structure of your website, which can improve its visibility in search results. Website hierarchy refers to the way that the pages of your website are organized, and how they are related to one another. It's important to have a clear hierarchy because it helps users and search engines understand the relationship between the pages and the overall structure of the website. A clear hierarchy can be achieved by using a clear menu structure, breadcrumb navigation, and by using heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to organize the content on each page. Website organization refers to the way that the content is arranged on each page. A clear organization can be achieved by using headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up the content and make it easy to read. Additionally, you should use descriptive and relevant titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags to provide additional information about the content on each page. Including this you need to write a healthy evergreen content or you can hire any freelancer for content writing. Using a meta tag analyzer tool can help you to bring more perfection on it.
6. URL Optimization
Use descriptive, keyword-rich URLs and file names. Using descriptive, keyword-rich URLs and file names can help search engines understand the content of your pages better and improve your website's visibility in search results. A descriptive URL is easy to understand and gives an idea of the content that the user will find on the page. It should be short, concise, and include the main keywords that describe the content of the page. It's important to use hyphens to separate words in the URL, this makes it easier for search engines to understand what the page is about. A keyword-rich URL is one that includes relevant keywords in the URL. This can help search engines understand the content of the page and rank it accordingly. However, it's important to avoid keyword stuffing, which is the practice of including too many keywords in the URL, as this can negatively impact your website's search engine rankings. File names of images and other media files should also be descriptive and keyword-rich. This can help search engines understand the content of the images and rank them accordingly. You should avoid using generic file names like "image1.jpg" and use descriptive file names like "red-apple.jpg" instead.
7. Fix Broken Links
Check for broken links and 404 errors, and fix them as necessary. To check and fix broken links and 404 errors in technical SEO, you can use a web crawler or link checker tool to identify any broken links on your website, check your website's log files for 404 errors, update or remove broken links, use 301 redirects for permanently removed pages, verify that all internal links are working, and monitor your website regularly to ensure new broken links do not appear. This will help improve user experience and ensure search engines can easily access and crawl your pages. You can use our free broken link checker tool to fix broken links on your site.
8. ALT Tags
Use alt tags to describe images and other non-textual content. Alt tags, also known as alternative text, are used to describe images and other non-textual content on a web page. They provide a text-based description of the content for users who are visually impaired or using screen readers, as well as for search engines that may not be able to crawl or understand the visual content. To use alt tags, you can add the "alt" attribute to the HTML code for an image or other non-textual content, and include a brief, descriptive text. For example, an image of a red apple might have an alt tag that says "red apple." It is important to use descriptive, relevant and concise alt tags. Avoid using generic text like "image" or "graphic" and also avoid keyword stuffing your alt tags. Alt tags help to improve accessibility and also help with SEO, as they provide context and information about the content of an image to search engines, which can help the image to be indexed and appear in image search results.
9. Limit HTTP Requests
When we talk about website speed, one of the first things that comes to mind is reducing the number of resources and HTTP requests. When a user visits your website, a request is made to the server in order to access the requested files. The bigger the files, the longer it will take to respond to the action request.
There is no recommended number, but you should try to keep this number under 100.
The best thing you can do is delete unnecessary resources and then compress the remaining resources to reduce overall HTTPS request number. Another option is to combine the CSS and JS files into a single file so that only one request is made every time user visits your site.
10. Site Health Check-up
Monitor and track your website's performance and search engine rankings using tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics. These tools are both valuable tools for monitoring and tracking a website's performance and search engine rankings. Search Console provides insights on how Google crawls and indexes a website, as well as any issues that may be impacting its visibility in search results. Analytics, on the other hand, offers data on website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. Together, these tools can provide a comprehensive view of a website's performance and can help identify areas for optimization.
Final Thoughts
Technical SEO refers to the behind-the-scenes optimizations that affect your SEO growth, such as site architecture, mobile optimization, and page speed.
The ultimate goal of technical SEO is to make sure that search engines can easily understand and crawl a website's content, and that users can easily navigate and use the website. By ensuring that the website is technically optimized, website owners and marketers can improve the website's visibility in search results, drive more traffic to the website, and ultimately increase conversions and revenue. Technical SEO is an important aspect of search engine optimization that can help bloggers, business owners, marketers to improve their website's visibility, increase website traffic, and ultimately grow their audience and reach. There are some best SEO tools to increase work efficiency and perfection, you can explore all the tools here that meet your needs.
