After covering how to monitor on- and off-page SEO efforts in the first two posts,“How to Monitor Technical SEO Efforts” is the last of a three-part series that emphasizes the importance of maximizing the ROI of these critical tactics.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO covers the specialized steps taken to help Google’s algorithm effectively crawl your website and understand its content. It’s essential to elevating rank on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Further, by leveraging technical SEO to create faster websites that are easier to comprehend, businesses also serve their audiences well.
What Technical SEO Optimizations Should You Consider?
There are a variety of technical SEO enhancements to consider when optimizing your website. The list below can help boost ranking and increase organic traffic.
Sitemaps
Sitemaps are a fundamental part of technical SEO.. Simply put, they are XML files that list important web pages, which assist Google’s algorithm in crawling and discerning your website’s content. In many cases, it also helps it locate the web pages that would have been neglected otherwise.
Google recommends that only larger websites incorporate them, however every website can benefit from a sitemap. It will ensure that the algorithm successfully indexes important web pages.
When creating your sitemap, carefully consider which pages to include based on their relevance. If the page doesn’t provide essential information to your audience, it shouldn’t be listed.
Once your sitemap is complete, you can upload it to Google Search Console within the “Sitemaps” tab.
Enhance Your Website’s Speed
A slow website is detrimental to performance, as users today expect pages to load within seconds. Additionally, Google’s algorithm factors a website’s speed when crawling it. Therefore, improving your website’s load time can increase your traffic and heighten your rank on the SERPs.
Fortunately, increasing your website’s speed is simple with tools like Google Pagespeed Insights. Free and easy to use it provides an in-depth breakdown of its current load timespeed, an overall website performance score and a list of suggestions to improve it
Another factor to consider when enhancing your website’s speed is using a content delivery network (CDN). Compared to hosting your website on a single server, which means all user requests are received by it alone, a CDN hosts your website on various servers based on the geographical location of users trying to access it. This can be an expensive method to increase speed, but will inevitably improve the user experience and earn a higher ranking on the SERPs.
There are plenty of simpler website modifications that can reduce wait times as well. These include reducing the number of ads on individual pages, scaling down images and monitoring your use of web fonts.
Incorporating a majority of the suggestions above will guarantee a faster website, improve user experience and likely lead to an increase in rank on the SERPs.
Take the Mobile-Friendly Test
More and more users are accessing websites on mobile devices rather than desktops. As such, Google’s algorithm considers a website’s responsiveness on all platforms when ranking on the SERPs. Thus, websites must work seamlessly regardless of screen size. The Mobile-Friendly Test, a Google Search Console feature, generates a preview of how your website looks on mobile devices and decides whether or not the page is mobile-friendly. The tool also lists any errors that impact mobile usability.
Taking these errors into consideration can help you better optimize your website for mobile users.
Remove Duplicate Content
Some websites attempt to increase their rankings on the SERPs by duplicating high-ranking content. However, Google’s algorithm will flag this tactic, which results in penalties and a considerable drop in ranking on the SERPs.
Other websites duplicate content unintentionally. Nevertheless, they will experience the same negative repercussions. Needless to say, it’s crucial to track all content on your website on an ongoing basis.
On the SEO monitoring platform, BrightEdge, you can conduct a “Site Audit” that will comb your website and flag any errors. This includes duplicate content. Once you have a final report,, fix any errors as quickly as possible to avoid penalties.
BrightEdge’s site audit also yields an overall performance score and a list of your website’s most critical errors. Performing these audits at least once a month will keep you up to date on any errors and ensure your website is running smoothly.
Wrap Up
Following these technical SEO optimizations and consistently monitoring your website for errors will help increase website traffic. It will also help Google’s algorithm crawl and interpret its content, which can help boost the ranking in the SERPs.
For more information about on-page, off-page and technical SEO, contact us.
