How Can I Improve My Technical SEO?

Today, we will discuss some technical SEO aspects that will help you prioritize your techy search engine optimization activities this year.

So, here we go.

Here are 9 Technical SEO Aspects You Should Consider in 2019 to Rank Higher:

• SSL Certificate
• Mobile Responsiveness
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• Site Speed or Load Speed
• Duplicate Content Issues
• Canonical URL
• XML Sitemap
• Structured Data Markup
• Search Engines Indexing Tools

This list may look a bit daunting but hey, that’s why it’s technical SEO! Kidding aside, before we discuss any further, you may ask…

What is Technical SEO?

You may already have a hint on the list given above but on a broader sense, technical SEO basically refers to the practices you need to cultivate to make sure that your website has a secure connection, fast loading time, and a responsive design that your users will love.

Why Technical SEO is Important?

When you constantly do the best practices that come with technical SEO, your website will be more favored by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., and ranking higher in search results is your reward.

Certain technical characteristics of websites bring so much advantage than those that ignore the technical needs when optimizing their web pages for search engines.

If you meet the technical expectations of search engine algorithms, your website will rank higher than your competitors and this will result in getting more traffic to your website, more products or services you can offer, more conversion from your web pages, and more cash flow to your business – this is why SEO is very important.

Ensure the SSL Certificate for Your Website

Having an SSL certificate is a huge ranking factor. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer – this creates an encrypted link between a browser and a web server which makes it the preferred security technology of Google and other search engines.

So, websites with ‘https://’ will be favored by search engine algorithms than those that only have ‘http://’. Therefore, it’s important to install the SSL certificate on your website.

Work More on Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness is another factor that will help you rank higher when it comes to SEO – especially when Google introduced the ‘mobile-first’ indexing – this is because more than 50% of Google search users are using mobile devices than desktops.

So, it is best to ensure that your website is ‘mobile-friendly’ which means that it can be easily read and smoothly navigated on any device – not just for the experience of desktop users but also for laptop, tablet, and mobile phone users.

Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

AMP uses a special code commonly known as AMP HTML and this speeds up the content delivery on mobile devices which is Google’s aim – this is why Google backed up the AMP project.

Now, because of AMP versions on your web pages, your content will load extremely fast and they will more likely be shared and read by your users and in return, their dwell time and click-throughs will increase… and hopefully, gather more authority backlink to help bump your rank higher.

Go for Faster Site Speed or Load Speed

Your web pages load speed is also an important signal to rank higher on search engines. This is because websites with faster load speed depict an improved user experience based on the user’s behavior when navigating your website such as the dwell time and click-throughs (which eliminates bounce rates).

So, ensure that your website pages load faster by using a fast hosting and perhaps a fast DNS (Domain Name System) provider (if your scope is all over the globe), by converting your images into small files without sacrificing pixelation, and by compressing your web pages, etc.

Correct Duplicate Content Issues

Having multiple duplicate content on your website can get you penalized especially by Google because this is commonly recognized as black-hat SEO – duplicate content used to manipulate search rankings to win more traffic and rank higher.

Plus, duplicate content can be confusing for search engine algorithms and for users which may negatively impact the user experience.

Now, dealing with duplicate content can be a really technical job but it’s worth doing – things such as manually deleting duplicate pages, or preventing the website CMS from publishing pages or posts in multiple versions by disabling Session IDs (ask your technical SEO specialist about this).

Also, by “tagging” the main page version of particular content by adding a canonical URL.

Add a Canonical URL on Pages with Similar Content

This technical SEO practice is actually one of the main solutions to fix duplicate content issues. Adding a canonical URL or link should be done especially if your web pages have already been indexed.

So, check the backend of your web pages and see if a canonical URL has been added – this link signals Google and other search engine algorithms that you found out that there are similar pages in your website but there is a version that your readers should go and this one should be your most preferred page.

A canonical URL usually looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://delante.co/rel-canonical-what-are-canonical-urls-for/” />

Build an XML Sitemap

Your XML Sitemap will tell search engine “crawlers” exactly where each page is – like a roadmap for your web pages so the search engines can understand what your website is all about.

Building an XML sitemap for your website helps store convenient information about each web page such as how frequent the update is, what do you prioritize on your website, and when a web page was last modified.

Include a Structured Data Markup in Your Website

A structured data markup is a type of code that helps search engines provide more relevant results to users as the “crawlers” understand the content of the page better. This way, the search engines “crawlers” can index your website better.

Also, a structured data markup helps show rich snippets and this enhances search results related to your website content. Take note that enhanced results can drastically improve your website click-through rate and conversion.

Use Search Engines Indexing Tools

Registering your website to free indexing tools such as Google Search Console and Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Tool can make a huge difference in your web pages ranking higher.

Submitting your website to these search engine indexing tools is very important especially if your website is new… or if you have a new page article and even blog posts.

As soon as these tools start to crawl your new website, you’ll eventually see search results, showing your website content, ranking higher – given that you have thoroughly followed this technical SEO checklist for 2019.

What’s more is that these indexing tools record and report the general performance of your website and what you need to do especially in a technical SEO aspect such as disavowing spam links, reviewing your website mobile responsiveness, managing backlinks to your website, and accessing search analytics to help you produce more relevant content.

Technical SEO Aspects to Rank Higher in 2019:

It’s true that technical SEO practices can be tedious and a little more daunting but technical SEO is equally important to on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

If you want your website to rank higher in 2019, ensure to follow this article through and perhaps hire some excellent SEO specialists and have the team run a comprehensive technical SEO audit for your website.