When it comes to enhancing the organic reach of websites online, only SEO experts can provide assistance. Basically, SEO has two parts—Technical and Non-Technical. Most of us are only aware of the non-technical part, which is on-page and off-page SEO. In other words, headings, meta titles, keywords, backlinks, and content. But the fact is that SEO is much more than that. Technical SEO is a term that is just as essential as non-technical SEO for ranking and organic reach. In this blog, we will break down the parts of technical SEO so that you can ask your SEO provider about technical SEO audit services to get the best output.
Clearing the Basics of Technical SEO
To understand the topic technical SEO, here is a simple example. You can imagine your website like a house, content as furniture, and the technical SEO as foundation. If the house foundation is not strong, content and design will be of no use. So, technical SEO is the foundation of a website which helps search engines to crawl and understand your website.
Analyzing the Significance of Technical SEO
Before you jump into an SEO audit, understanding its significance is of utmost importance.
- It is about helping the website get noticed by Google and other search engines.
- It ensures smooth performance and speed of the website to decrease the bounce rate.
- It is a step to fix URL issues that could block search engines.
- It is one of the most crucial ways to enhance the user experience.
- Last but not least, it improves ranking and drives traffic.
If I conclude all these points, the one-line answer is that without technical SEO, your website will not be noticeable on search engines.
Let’s Break Down the Term Technical SEO Audit
It is a process of checking the basic health of the website.
It helps identify what is working properly, what is broken, and what needs improvement. The purpose of the audit is to keep you well-informed about the website health. If there are any issues, they need to be fixed as early as possible.
Key Things to Check & Fix in a Technical SEO Audit
Do you know, technical SEO can check and fix various basic technical aspects required for ranking and speed of websites? An SEO expert coordinates with the website designer to fix deep technical issues.
1. Analyzing Website Speed
This is the foremost step which matters a lot for ranking. Online users cannot wait for more than 2–3 seconds to access a website. If the loading time is more than 3 seconds, the bounce rate will increase (users will not stay on the site). Google likes only fast-loading websites.
What to check: During an audit, SEO experts analyze the page loading time. If the loading time is high, images, scripts, and plugins are analyzed.
What to fix: SEO experts often compress images. They may suggest you go for faster hosting. They coordinate with web developers to remove unnecessary plugins and faulty scripts.
2. Analyzing the Mobile Friendliness
Today, a vast majority of users visit websites from mobile phones. If the website is not compatible with mobile devices, it means a huge loss of traffic.
What to check: An SEO auditor ensures that the site layout adapts properly to different screen sizes of mobile devices. The auditor also ensures that each button is easy to click and the text is readable.
What to fix: If the website seems unresponsive on mobile devices, the audit team works closely with the designer to make the site responsive by improving the mobile layout.
3. Website Crawlability
Do you know, search engines use bots (a software program) to “crawl” websites. In case any of your website pages are not crawled, it indicates an issue. The page will not be visible in search results, and it affects website ranking.
What to check: During auditing, the primary aim is to check the crawlability of each important page. A list is created for pages that are blocked from crawling.
What to fix: After checking, the team unblocks these pages by fixing broken navigation and other technical aspects.
4. Indexing Issues
This is one of the most important parts of SEO auditing. Here, the auditor confirms two aspects—crawling and indexing. Crawling, as discussed, is about finding the page, and indexing is about storing it in Google’s database.
What to check: During auditing, the team ensures all important pages are indexed. Missing pages are listed to fix.
What to fix: Indexing issues are handled by SEO experts by submitting a sitemap and removing noindex tags from important pages. It is a technical aspect.
5. Broken Links
If a page has 404 error, it has broken links that cannot be accessed by users and search bots. It affects the website ranking and traffic.
What to check: During auditing, the auditor checks those pages with broken links and lists them in the audit table.
What to fix: All the broken pages are either updated or redirected to new ones.
6. Website Structure
SEO experts analyze the website navigation. The purpose is to make the website more presentable and well-organized.
What to check: During auditing, the team ensures that the site has a clear menu and proper categories.
What to fix: If the website seems disorganized, the team fixes the structure of related content. Interlinking and menu setup can be performed.
7. URL Structure
Special attention is given to the URL structure. A bad URL may contain symbols, meaningless words, and numbers. A good URL should include the primary keyword along with the website URL.
What to check: During auditing, the team analyzes each URL for accuracy and lists faulty URLs.
What to fix: After shortlisting the faulty URLs, the team fixes them by keeping them short and keyword-friendly.
8. Duplicate Content
Content is checked for duplicate issues. If a website has the same content on more than one URL, it can confuse search engines, and the ranking will go down.
What to check: The team ensures that there are no similar or repeated pages.
What to fix: The problem of duplicate content is handled using canonical tags and by removing or merging duplicate pages.
Apart from this, the SEO audit team also fixes issues related to the XML sitemap and the robots.txt file.
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