Technical SEO Components

Technical SEO involves optimising the technical aspects of a website to ensure it meets the standards of search engine algorithms. It is the foundation of an SEO strategy that ensures a website is accessible, fast, and secure for both users as well as search engines. The following are the key components of Technical SEO.

1. Website Structure and Architecture

Crawlability:

• Ensure search engines can crawl all important pages.
• Use a well-structured XML sitemap.
• Link or remove orphan pages.

URL Structure:

• Use clean, descriptive, and user-friendly URLs with targeted keywords.

2. Site Speed and Performance

Page Load Time:

• Optimise site speed for desktop and mobile devices.
• Compress images.
• Minify the website code.

Hosting:

• Use a reliable hosting provider with robust security systems, as well as a server equipped with adequate RAM and CPUs.

3. Mobile-Friendliness

Responsive Design:

• Ensure the website adjusts seamlessly to different screen sizes.

Mobile Usability:

• Check that all elements are legible and fit within the page.
• Ensure buttons and links are touch-friendly.

4. Secure Website (HTTPS)

SSL Certificate:

• Ensure that all elements of a webpage are loaded using HTTPS (secure connection).
• Renew the SSL certificate well before it expires.

5. Indexing and Crawling

Robots.txt File:

• Properly configure to allow/disallow search engine bots as needed.

Canonical Tags:

• Prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a page.

Noindex Tags:

• Ensure that confidential information is tagged noindex so as not to appear in search results.
• Set non-essential pages to noindex to optimise crawl budget.

6. Structured Data and Schema Markup

Rich Snippets:

• Use schema markup to help search engines understand your content.

7. Crawl Errors

Google Search Console:

• Monitor crawl errors (404s, server errors) and fix the causes.

Redirects:

• Use 301 redirects for moved or deleted pages.

8. Site Hierarchy and Internal Linking

Logical Hierarchy:

• Use a clear structure with categories and subcategories.

Internal Links:

• Link related content to guide users and help search engines discover pages.

9. Duplicate Content

• Check and alter all duplicate content.

10. Image Optimisation

• Use descriptive file names and alt text for images.
• Compress images to improve page speed.
• Serve next-gen formats like WebP.

11. Pagination and Faceted Navigation

• Optimise paginated content with rel=”prev” and rel=”next” tags.
• Use canonical tags for faceted navigation to avoid duplicate content issues.

12. Handling Broken Links

• Check and fix broken internal and external links to media and pages.

13. International SEO (if applicable)

• Use hreflang tags to target users in specific languages or regions.
• Ensure correct currency and language settings for international audiences.

14. Core Web Vitals

Optimise for Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability.

15. Log File Analysis

• Analyse server logs to understand how search engines crawl your site.
• Identify crawl frequency, errors, and blocked pages.