What Does Technical SEO Entail

Marketing Advice - 12.10.17

We know a lot about on-page and off-page SEO factors that affect your rankings when it comes to search engines such as Google, Bing etc. These include inbound links, keywords, content and much more… but what does technical SEO consider when ranking your website?

Website Speed

This element is probably in the top 5 items that affect your site’s ranking. No one likes a slow website! It’s as simple as that. In 2016, Google pointed out that its aim is for a website to load in 0.5 seconds. Google tend to be ambitious when it comes to its expectations, so ideally your site shouldn’t take longer than 2 seconds to load. If it does, we have a problem. Here are a few things to look at when it comes to your site’s speed:

  • Keep your templates and designs simple. Anything “extra” is guaranteed to slow down your site.

  • Make sure your images are optimised correctly.

  • Limit the number of redirects. The more redirects you have on a single page, the longer the load time; make sure that a user is only redirected once.

Mobile Friendliness

This is equally as important as website speed. It’s no secret that Google already prefers mobile-friendly websites, and they recently announced that from 2018 they will start indexing mobile sites first. Read Google's statement here.

So if your site is not mobile-friendly, it’s time to optimise it now!

Site Architecture

Clear site architecture is important, not only for search engine rankings but also for your users. So you must do it right from the start! There are a few things to consider when it comes to this: 

  • HTTPS - This is the secure protocol to use when it comes to your website. We recently wrote a blog about HTTPS if you'd like to know more about it. Not only does it help to boost your search rankings, but it also makes your site more secure which, since this October, has been a crucial factor for Google. Sites that aren’t HTTPS will be marked as unsafe by Google.

  • URL Structure - Your site URLs should be clear, descriptive and, for best SEO practices, include a keyword. Keyword inclusion in the page URL will strengthen the relevancy of the page and give that extra boost to your rankings.

  • Internal Links - You should link the content internally on your site. Also, make sure to categorise your website’s subject matter. This way you’ll ensure that the users can browse between sections and that older content can be easily accessed.

Structured Data

Structured data is a standardised format for providing information about a web page and its content. It is a more efficient way for Google and other search engines to crawl sites and identify the content on the page more precisely and augment Search Engine Result Pages with additional search features.

It allows web crawlers to identify company information such as the name, address and phone number, along with other information such as articles, events, products, recipes, reviews, etc. Structured data is constantly being developed and improved, with new features regularly cropping up in our SERPs.

An example can be seen below, where the film review website Rotten Tomatoes uses structured data to show searchers a brief overview of information relating to a film, such as a review score, film runtime, release date and rating.

The advantage of using structured data is to make your website’s presence on SERPs more attractive to searchers and to increase clickthroughs to your site, ultimately increasing conversions.

In terms of what’s involved in implementing structured data, your web developers would code and markup your website using the code suggested by search engines such as Google. The Google Developer website provides a comprehensive gallery of what’s available and a relatively easy-to-follow implementation guide for each feature on their developer website.

We hope you’ve learnt all you need to know about technical SEO features but if you’re still unsure or are looking to implement some of these technical SEO features on your website, why not get in touch with Together Digital today and one of our highly-trained experts can advise you on best practices. 

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