The Basic Of Technical SEO: A complete Technical SEO guide

What is Technical SEO ? What are some difference

Imagine this scenario where you have just created an amazing video on your website, conducted extensive digital marketing to create the awareness of your video, the date of the launch has gone viral, and people are waiting impatiently to watch the video. Then the d-day comes, and it takes your website 10 seconds plus to load. What do you suppose will happen?

First, your visitors will get tired of waiting for the page to load, your bounce rate will increase, and Google will penalize your site.

This scenario is caused by a faulty technical SEO; and it also brings to fore, the vital importance of performing it on your website. What is technical SEO, how relevant is it for websites, what are the elements that make up a good technical SEO? 

What is a technical SEO?

Russ Jones of TECH SEO provides this interesting definition, he says

“any sufficiently technical action undertaken with the intent to improve search results”.

Russ Jones definition may be interesting, but it failed to pin-point some significant elements of technical SEO like Alexis Sanders of Merkle, he said

“Technical SEO covers the crawl, index, and render the portion of the “crawl, index, rank” model. 

It is important to conduct technical update SEO on your website because technical problems undermine the usability of your web pages. Everything that works behind to scene to make your website SEO requires some technical know-how.

For instance, producing basic content and making it search engine optimized to appear and rank high in search engine result requires different skills. Unfortunately, marketers avoid making the necessary modification that makes website contents relevant just because they lack technical knowledge.

The purpose and work of technical SEO:

• To ensure that search engine bots can crawl or find your page which includes status codes, information structure, robots.txt, facets, status codes, and sitemaps.
• To ensure that your web page is easily indexed by search engine spider
• To make bots render your page, and that includes, DOM, JavaScript, and page speed
• To ensure that the content of your pages are easily comprehensible by bots
• To ensure that your web pages are giving out the right signals to search engine regarding handling content ranking
• And finally, to ensure that your page is ranking worthy.

Generally speaking, if your website is not performing well in search engines ranking, the reason is mostly tied to a failed technical SEO job.

To a layman that is still confused about the meaning of skilled SEO practice, here is a simpler definition:

It is the optimization of your website for easy crawling and indexing by search engine bots, and the purpose is to enhance search visibility and website usability. 

Another way to understand it is when you compare skilled SEO to the function of a skeleton in the human body. The skeleton provides protection, shape, support, and structure to the body; this pretty much summarizes the benefit of skilled or technical SEO.

Also, like the skeleton that is not visible to the eyes, a technical SEO job is invisible, but the impact can only be seen through website performances.

The elements of technical SEO:

Mobile friendly:

Many people own cell phones and are literally glued to it they act as if it’s their life. Every day, people are buying cell phones including those who already have one; some have two or more cell phones, while some habitually change their phones frequently.

The use of a mobile phone for online browsing will increase in the 2020s, Google and other search engines recognized this trend; therefore, they have been working hard over the years to adjust their search algorithms to show this mobile phone craze.

In 2015, they introduced mobile phone related updates. In 2016, an indexing plan for mobile was introduced.

Mobile phone traffic is currently more popular than desktop traffic. People are now conducting searches through their phone 57% of traffics and visit to retail stores is from mobile gadgets. 

Base on the brief illustration above about mobile phone usage, you can see why making your web pages mobile-optimized is important.

The update by Google makes it so, and because Google controls 93% of the search engine space, everyone including search engines is compelled to comply with their mobile algorithm update dictates.

How can a website become optimized for mobile traffic?

The simpler way is to create a dynamic or responsive website that can adapt to screen size.

2.      Website Speed:

How fast your website loads is a critical requirement for SEO ranking. It doesn’t matter if you are operating from a mobile or desktop device, your web page speed is crucial. 

Website visitors generally are impatient and will simply leave a website for another if it takes too long to load; this action is called pogo-sticking, and Google hates it. A page that takes 10 seconds to loads increases bounces rate by 132%. A slow-loading page is one of the major reasons people abandon a website for another. 

Google reacts to pogo-sticking by reducing the ranking potential of a website. Technical SEO will ensure that your page load time is fast.

Reasons websites have speed problems are:

• Images are poorly optimized or too big
• No web content compression
• Too many CSS image request on pages
• No caching of information
• Too many plugins installed on a website
• CDN is absent for static files
• Slow web host connection

3. Website errors:

Another aspect that technical search engine optimization deals with is site errors. The fact is website mistakes will tank your ranking; they are simply frustrating; everyone hates it, so should you. What causes a website error?

Most often, mistakes on the website are caused by broken links, missing pages, and incorrect redirects. To handle errors on websites, keep this in mind.

You have to handle 404 errors. Imagine clicking a website, and what you get is a 404 error. This gives a website a bad image and low credibility. Google simply hates it. 

Look for broken links and fix them:

A broken link is another aspect that requires technical SEO. Google hates broken links because it’s annoying. Envisage clicking on a link with the hope of reading an interesting article, and what happens? Nothing, no article to read; this is very frustrating especially if the situation persists on the same page. The next sensible action is you stop visiting that website. 

You can fix this problem by locating broken links; it’s not complicating. Also, avoid this problem by monitoring your link building effort. 

There are tools you can use online to discover and fix broken links.

4. Duplicate contents:

Producing content that is similar to another in several websites is called duplicate content, the crime is plagiarism. Duplicate content can be in the form of written content like articles, blog posts, images, videos, etc. Many webmasters use duplicate or plagiarized content on their website, and Google frowns against this practice – no one likes to read or view the same contents seen two or more websites. 

Check duplicate contents with Copyscape and avoid Google punishment.

5. Avoid crawl errors with sitemaps:

Never overlook crawl errors. What is a crawl error? It simply indicates that bots crawling your website discovers something amiss that will affect the ranking of your website. You can prevent this problem with sitemaps. Add a working sitemap on your website. 

A sitemap makes the crawling of your website easy, use XML sitemap on your website, and when you are done, present it to the search engines. After you have added it to the search engine, Google will easily index your pages.

6.      Long and confusing URL:

Does your URL have a query stricture at the end? If it does, take it off, because, it will constitute an indexing problem. Other problems that can cause index difficulties are, missing alt tags, title tags, and long or missing meta descriptions.

7.      Optimize images:

Having responsive visual content that enhances users’ experience is very portent for on-page and marketing SEO.

An abnormally large image can affect page load-time, make your website less mobile-friendly, and eventually, affect your Google ranking.

Apart from abnormal sized images, broken images can also damage user experience hence increasing the bounce rate.

Upload only top-quality images and use the Smush tool for compressing and optimization.

The Smush tool is a plugin that helps to reduce the size of your images to a point it doesn’t slow down your pages. T

he wonderful part about the tool is that it works without changing the quality of your pix.

Another tool is called Super Cache, used for producing pictures of your sites. It can reduce the number of data your website utilizes and increase your website load time.

8.      International SEO:

Some websites target international or global users. Such websites need to optimize their web pages to allow easy international user accessibility.

If your global target audience cannot access your sites, they will abandon it for another; this invariable leads to pogo-sticking that Google hates so much.

You can fix this technical issue through these 2 avenues:

Country:

A website that targets international audiences are nick-named multi-regional sites; to avoid SEO issues, they should select a URL that allows easy domain targeting. Using a “ccTLD like .ca, .uk,” or a country- exact subfolder like “.com/ca” is recommended.

Language:

If your sites target people of different languages, add “hreflang tag to notify Google that your pages have a duplicate for another language.

The basics of Technical SEO involve enhancing your website usability. It is a behind the scene optimization of your website structure and contents that makes indexing easy and Google ranking possible. It makes website responsive promoting excellent user experience. 

A Complete Guide to SEO: What You Need to Know in 2020

Search Engine Optimization is an aspect of Internet Marketing and this suggests that there are other traffic generating methods online; however, SEO is a favorite among internet marketers and business owners, because, it’s a perfect source of organic traffic. When you desire to build credibility and brand loyalty for your business, SEO should be your preferred starting point.

According to stats, 93% of online experiences start with the search engine. What does this mean to new business or even thriving businesses? The answer is simple. It means that under normal circumstances, every business has a 9 out of 10 chances of being discovered through search engines. No wonder why search engine advertising is very important for your business growth.

What exactly is SEO, and how can you use it to promote your online business?

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is a vital online marketing source that uses the search engine as a way of promoting online businesses. It is a very perfect source of free organic traffic. The search engines provide an organized structure for people to discover products or services online through conducting searches and using specific keywords.

According to Wiki the definition of SEO is as below

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine.

When people access your website as a result of specific keywords, they are regarded as organic, targeted, of primary traffic. Internet marketers observe that the inflow of people through search engines increases the conversation rate because they are interested in the product or service. 

For example, When people search for an “iPhone case” via Google, thousands of websites offering the product will be displayed with links to their different websites. When searchers click through the links they will be taken to the website, and because they conducted the search which indicates their interest in the product, there is a good chance the prospects will buy the product or perform other forms of action on the website; this is the importance of SEO and why it’s the number one source of online advertising. 

How SEO works:

Search engine advertising is made up of crawling, indexing, and selecting results. The search engine process is a technical one that requires solid knowledge and skill to execute. Below is a brief explanation of the process. 

First is the crawling stage. It is called spidering which simply refers to the act of scanning a website’s keywords, sections, contents, images, headings, and hyperlinks by bots. These bots crawl the internet constantly to update data. 

The indexing stage: After the scanning of the internet by bots, then indexing can occur. The result of crawling will usually lead to the successful addition of a website in a search engine which makes it visible. Indexing usually takes time depending on the quantity of data that requires crawling. 

Whenever there is a change or update made n a website, it will be crawled again.

Selecting the result:

After a search query is submitted by a website owner, the search engine kicks to action to investigate the index and extracts corresponding outcomes. 

The importance of SEO

Statistics show that about 93% of the world’s internet marketing traffic comes directly from an online search, while sixty-seven thousand (67,000) search engine searches are performed every second on Google. This is not all, 80% of people overlook paid ads in favor of search engine results.

These stats show the high relevance that search engine marketing has on other types of internet marketing. Below are some of the reasons why generating traffic through search engines is vital for your business.

1. Increased user experience:

Search engine optimization can boost users’ experience resulting in increased leads, clicks, and conversion rates.

2. It is an excellent source of primary leads:

SEO is a factor of inbound strategies including others like social media, referrals, content marketing, etc. Inbound tactics are an effective traffic generation avenue that is sure to result in the success of leads generation among B2C, B2B, and non-profit companies.

3. It brings about increased close rates:

Unlike out-bounds lead which has a close rate of 1.7%, SEO leads parades a whopping average close rate of 14.6%. This means that if a customer locates your service or products through searches, there is a very high tendency that he or she will either like your product, stay longer on your page, opt-in to your list or order your product.

4. Reduced advertising cost:

According to search journal, inbound leads coming from search result has the potential of reducing your cost of generating leads by 61%. Therefore, it reduces the cost of advertising hence boosting your bottom-line.

5. It promotes local business patronage:

With SEO, local clients may decide to visit your physical business address after their online search. Remember earlier in this write-up, it was declared that 91% of online experience begins through search engine searches, so imagine if after searching a particular keyword and your website shows up in number one result, the outcome will be a mammoth flow of leads to your website.

6. It builds the credibility of your business and brand loyalty:

Ranking on the top 3 search results will make prospects perceive you as an authority in your niche. It, therefore, shows that you are one of the best in your industry and this perception alone guarantees patronage and brand loyalty.

Types of SEO:

There are different SEO types, in this article, four types will be discussed briefly, and they are technical, on-page, local, and off-page SEO. 

1.Technical SEO:

This is the technical strictures that influence a website’s search engine accessibility. The core objective of this type of SEO is to guarantees the effectiveness of search engine crawlers among others which are:

• Helping to optimize and check robot.txts that guarantees effective search engine website accessibility.
• Adopting coverage reports to discover and correct mistakes
• Creating and delivering XML Sitemap to the entire internet search engines
• making websites loads very fast on mobile and desktop devices
• Optimizing the URL and website structure.

2. On-page SEO:

This involves everything that has to do with the page plus how it can be made user and search engine-friendly. You must focus on optimizing all your site pages because search engine ranking is performed on a page to page basis. The key factors required for on-page optimization are:

• Title optimization. This is very important because the title of your site pages shows up on page results; therefore, it should be interesting and attractive. Optimizing your H1, H2, and H3 tags for various sections.
• Images: optimizing any image(s) used in your websites, if you don’t, search engines will not recognize it.
• Page formatting: Always take time to beautify your images and text before you publish the website. Avoid the habit of wrong formatting as it will work against you.
• Content SEO: This has to do with the quality of your website content and how you can make it better.

3. Off-page SEO:

Off-page SEO involves internet promotion. It focuses on the strategies adopted by you to advertise your website. There are different off-page SEO strategy, the major one is link building.

Popular websites have a greater propensity of receiving higher ranking than less-known sites. The major off-page SEO methods are link building and brand advertising, 

4. Local SEO:

This type of SEO is created or is best suited for offline or local businesses alone. If you operate a business locally and you have a website, should you need to redirect online traffic to your local business via your website, practice local SEO?

SEO activities

The higher a website is in a search engine result the more chances of being seen by prospects. A website that does not show up in the first 10 results may not be seen by searchers, and this is why businesses fight for top search engine placements or ranking. Therefore, the totality of this type of advertising is not just about getting on the search engine, but about getting top ranking for better exposure.

This is why the best SEO guide will focus mostly on how to rank high in search results and importantly making your website convert using strategies.

Performing basic SEO activity

On-page SEO is technical and very important if you want to get indexed and ranked in the search engines. In the past on-page, SEO was all about meta-tags, headlines, and optimized content. Today, it’s a new ball game, the new SEO trends involve doing things differently to enjoy SEO in 2020. 

So when creating your website, follow these tips:

1. Discover what people are looking for before you start creating your website contents
2. Apply headlines and title tags. Produce a very interesting meta-description, title tag, and headlines. Avoid keyword over-stuffing – it doesn’t work anymore. Focus on making an excellent call to action in your meta description. 
3. SEO-friendly URL works any day, so use it as an optimization strategy. The best type of URL should be one that matches the theme of your website. For example, if your website is about “dog training,” your URL should have keyword relating to “dog training” like “www.dogtraining.com
4. Graphics and multimedia: Engaging your visitors is an excellent SEO ranking strategy. Google takes to account how long a visitor stays on your website and uses the action as a ranking factor. Therefore, optimizing your images, videos, is a good SEO and ranking strategy, also, adding interesting visual contents like Infographics, charts, polls, comments, etc will not only attract visitors, it will make them spend time on your website.
5. Internal and outbound links: Give your website the needed relevancy. Linking to authority website through creating outbound link will shoot your website up search engine ranking

 Summary

Search engine optimization is a type of internet marketing that involves generating traffic through the use of search engines. It is a favorite of internet marketing experts, and businesses too because it provides business credibility and brand loyalty, increases bottom-line, etc. In 2020, the use of SEO advertising will increase beyond anyone’s expectations. Therefore, individuals and business owners should possess at least a basic knowledge of the subject by attending SEO tutorials.