If you are an online marketer, you have heard of specific practices that will help you succeed, including search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO.
Good SEO practices help you in many ways, including driving traffic, improving your search engine rankings, and leading to increased conversions of clickthrough visitors to paying customers.
You may even have heard of on-page and off-page SEO strategies. However, there is one more type of SEO that is an integral part of the mix that makes for successful digital marketing. This component is called technical SEO.
What Is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is a term for all tasks related to SEO except for building links and optimizing and revising content. It involves improving search bot crawling by making sure your website adheres to all search engine requirements.
Search engines are developing and changing almost daily, so technical SEO is always in a state of development as well. Why is technical SEO important? Making sure search engines can find and crawl your entire website is like building a strong foundation on which to construct a building.
Without a sturdy foundation, nothing can stand for long, no matter how good it looks. Writing original jazzy content and using a multi-channel marketing plan is not enough.
If you do not keep your website updated, it will suffer in the search engine results pages. Users will not be able to find it quickly, and you will lose traffic.
One of the most essential benefits of technical SEO is building and driving leads. Here are seven technical SEO fixes that can drive leads to your site.
1. Page Load Speed
The quicker your pages load, the better your chances of retaining the interest of viewers. Amazon.com found that, with most today’s consumers, even a delay of 100 ms in web page loading time causes a sales loss.
2. Mobile-Friendly
Part of Google’s system of ranking factors measures how mobile-friendly web pages are. Your website must be accessible to users of mobile devices because Statista found that more than half of Google searches are from mobile devices.
3. Links
Links are an integral part of your website’s success. This is true for both backlinks and internal links. Make sure all links work, as broken links discourage visitors.
4. Robot.txt Files
Robot.txt files on your pages guide the search engine bots as they crawl. They tell the bots which areas of your page should be searched. You can allow bots to find some critical areas such as your sitemap and restrict others.
5. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs help visitors to your site navigate easily between pages and areas. While the term comes from the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel, the operation is of-the-moment.
6. SEO-Friendly URLs
Your SEO best practices should begin with your URL. Keep it short, meaningful, and keyword rich. Google offers webmasters lessons on making the most of their URLs.
7. 404 Pages
While 404 pages are, unfortunately, inevitable, you can make them work for you. Avoid generic 404 pages and opt for pages that reflect your brand to make sure visitors know they are still on your site.
Fixing Technical SEO Issues
All these factors are part of technical SEO maintenance and best practices for your website. You should regularly check the condition of your pages with a website audit.
There are many technical SEO tools to help you audit your site. Google makes several free tools that help you monitor your site, collect, and evaluate data, correct errors, and even contact Google about site penalties.
They include Google Analytics and Search Console, which are great places to start addressing these seven issues.
Ultimately, you want to make visiting your site pleasant and easy for visitors. They are more likely to return and even buy.
Fixes for the Future
Keeping your website in good shape is great for the present. It is also an effective investment in your future.
There are many technical aspects to having an excellent website, and they are part of best SEO practices.
When you tend to behind-the-scenes issues, you are creating a site that encourages visitors to become customers.
