What is Technical SEO? Important Technical SEO Factors 2024
Technical SEO is the most important and crucial type of SEO. This article contains an overview of Technical SEO, how it aligns with overall search engine optimization strategy, important technical SEO factors, and tools used in the process.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s architecture and backend processes and elements for improving website visibility, user-friendliness, and performance in the search results.
Technical search engine optimization is all about improving your website to make it easier for search engines to find, crawl, understand, and store your content. It can boost your website’s visibility in the search results.
It’s a common practice of web developers and SEO specialists to achieve the desired performance goals for any client.
Technical SEO is the backbone of a website. It can make or break your website in the search results. It mostly focuses on the backend of the website to prepare it for better visibility and ranking in the search results.
According to Neil Patel:
No website can stand without the backbone. And that backbone is Technical SEO”.
Why is Technical SEO important?
Imagine you published a great piece of content on your website but your website is not accessible by Google. Your website will not appear in the search results.
No matter how well your content is written, if it’s not accessible to Google, it’s useless. In this case, you will not be able to get traffic and if you are not getting traffic, it’s understood that you’re about to lose some potential revenue.
If you’re facing this scenario, it means your website needs attention on the Technical SEO side.
There are two technical SEO factors that directly impact the ranking of the website in the search results. Website load speed & Device-Friendliness (Mobile-Friendly).
Imagine a user came through your website and it’s taking too much time to load in front of the user. The potential user will get annoyed and he/she will suddenly bounce back without spending a single second on your website.
In this case, the bounce rate of your website will go high and Google doesn’t prioritize websites with high bounce rates. Google gives priority to websites that are fast and user-friendly.
Difference between On-page, Off-page, and Technical SEO
On-page and Technical SEO align with the development side of the website. Specialists in these types of search engine optimization mostly work with web developers to achieve the desired goals.
But off-page SEO is completely different and off-page SEO specialists work separately to establish website authority and trust in the market.
Off-page SEO – It involves building backlinks, developing page and domain authority, and maintaining relationships with other high-authority websites.
On-page SEO – It revolves around keyword integration and research and content optimization.
Technical SEO – It is the process of working on website structure, load speed, crawling and indexing, security (SSL), and user-friendliness.
In most scenarios, technical SEO overlaps with on-page SEO. Consider the process of interlinking your website’s inner pages. An on-page SEO expert develops internal linking between website pages to boost visibility and ranking.
On the other side, a technical SEO specialist overlooks the links’ accessibility by focusing on code errors and overall website link structure.
8 Important Technical SEO Factors to Consider
To comply with the search engine’s algorithm, it’s important to focus on all technical SEO factors. This article explains 8 important technical search engine optimization factors that are necessary to boost your website ranking and visibility.
Website Load Speed
As discussed earlier in this article, website load speed is a crucial factor that has a direct impact on website ranking.
A website load speed is measured when a browser requests some information from your website server and the server loads it completely in front of the user. The time-spam between the request received and the completion is called the website load speed.
According to Page Speed Insights, if your website takes more than 2 seconds, it indicates that the load speed is low and your website may be out of search results.
If your website goes out of search, you will lose too much traffic. And if you’re operating in the products or services industry, it’s clear you will lose sales and revenue also.
If your website load speed is under 2 seconds, it indicates a good load speed and there are great chances of ranking higher in the search results.
If you’re not sure about your website load speed, simply go through the Page Speed Insights website and enter your website URL.
You will see this window:
You can see there are two options. One is for Mobile devices that indicate your website’s speed index and performance on the mobile devices and the other one is for desktop. Check for both and if your website speed index is more than 2 seconds, consider implementing some Technical SEO techniques.
To achieve a good speed index on both mobile and desktop you can simply implement the following techniques:
- Compress all images
- Minify JavaScript and CSS files
- Check server response time
- Minimize large-size elements
- Integrate CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Mobile-friendly Design
Your website is mobile-friendly if your website content adjusts automatically on different screens. If your website content doesn’t adjust properly on different screens, then there’s a problem with your website. It means that you will be out of search.
According to SOAX, as of August 2024, 63.38% of global traffic, comes from mobile devices.
Mobile responsiveness is absolutely a ranking factor in the search results as per Google Mobile-first indexing. To check whether your website is mobile-friendly or not, simply go to the Sitecheker website and enter the URL of your website.
To make your website mobile-friendly consider implementing the following technical SEO techniques:
- Implement a responsive layout
- Optimize website load speed
- Optimize Images
- Avoid unnecessary pop-ups
- Arrange links, buttons, and visuals properly
- Optimize buttons and other object sizes
- Improve the overall website functionality
- Test your website on real devices
Website Structure
Maintaining your website structure is a crucial phase among all technical SEO factors. Google loves a well-structured website because it saves time for crawlers to find and understand the overall website content.
The process of website structure optimization encompasses the way information is presented, and the connectivity of website content, pages, categories, and other elements with each other.
Connecting all pages that contain information on similar topics, makes it easier for users and search engines to find all the relevant information easily.
To develop a good website structure, consider implementing the following technical SEO techniques:
- Arrange pages in a proper sequence
- Put the content into appropriate categories
- Form a strong link structure between the pages
- Design a user-friendly website
Broken Links & Broken Pages
When a user finds your website and lands on your website page, but the page doesn’t exist, these pages and links are known as broken links and broken pages.
Sometimes a user lands on a page and notices an error of redirect seeing a 404 error. These types of errors are very harmful to your website’s health. It also passes a signal that the website and its pages are not up-to-date.
It also affects your SEO efforts indirectly by increasing the bounce rate of your website. If the page is not accessible and a 404 error appears, the user will exit suddenly without spending a single second on the website.
It will also harm your backlinks profile and page/domain authority if too many backlinks are associated with the page that has a 404 error.
Finding broken links and pages is very easy. You can simply install the screaming frog software and run a test for a broken link check-up.
To resolve this issue, you will need to implement the following technical SOE techniques:
- Redirect the link to a new and updated page
- Redirect the link to the home page of the website (which is a good approach)
Robot.txt
Robot.txt is a file that gives instructions to search engines for which one page of the website is to crawl and which one is to not. Implement the robot.txt file wisely. Give clear instructions to search engines about the crawling of the pages. Mention all pages that you don’t want to see on the search results.
Experts use this technical SEO technique to:
- Block Non-public pages (Like contact and privacy policy)
- Block Duplicate Pages
- Hide some crucial and important data from crawlers
- Maximize crawl budget by adding multiple pages
To check whether your website has a robot.txt file or not, simply type “robot.txt” in the front of your website URL and you will see a text file, which is actually the robot.txt file of your website.
If a text file doesn’t appear, it means your website is missing a robot.txt file.
You can simply create a robot.txt file for your website through SEO Optimizer. If you’re using the Yoast SEO Plugin, it’s a plus point for you because Yoast automatically creates a robot.txt file.
Core Web Vitals
Core web vital contains three steps. FCP (First Content full Paint), LCP (Largest Content full Paint), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). These are considered as most important technical SEO factors in the website ranking and visibility.
Google uses all these three core web vitals to measure your website’s user experience.
FCP (First Content Full Paint) – It’s the time taken by loading the first object of your completely in front of the new users.
LCP (Largest Content Full Paint) – It’s the time takes to completely load the largest object of your website. It can be an image, video, or any other element.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – CLS measures the stability of a website page when it’s completely loaded. If a link, button, image, or any other element shifts after loading, this shows a poor page experience.
To check the core web vitals of your website, you can simply visit the core web vitals section in the search console property of your website.
You can also find all these metrics by conducting on your website through Page Speed Insights, which is an official product of Google.
You can analyze all these three technical SEO factors for both mobile and desktop through page speed insights.
Page Depth
Page depth is the number of clicks by the user to reach a specific page of the website. It’s considered an important factor in user experience.
If more than three clicks are required to reach a specific page, it’s considered a bad user experience and it becomes very hard for crawlers to find a specific page of the website.
This can lead your website or page lower in the ranking. To avoid this, you can implement three technical SEO techniques:
- Use a strong internal linking between your website’s pages
- Change your navigation menu to a solid hierarchy
- Make Breadcrumbs for Navigation
XML Sitemap Creation & Submission
XML Sitemap is a file provided to search engines that contains a list of web URLs that need to be crawled and indexed. Through XML sitemap, we provide additional information along with URLs to crawlers so that crawlers can easily crawl and index the website pages and URLs.
To check if your website has a sitemap or not, simply type “sitemap.xml” in front of your website URL, and an XML file will appear in front of you. If an XML file doesn’t appear, it means your website doesn’t have a sitemap.
To create a sitemap for your website, simply visit xml-sitemaps and paste your website URL. It will generate a sitemap for your website.
Now, it’s not finished yet. You will need to submit this sitemap to Google. To submit the sitemap, simply open your website’s search console property and on the left-hand side you will notice a sitemap option. Simply click on it and submit a sitemap in the search console.
If you’re a Yoast SEO user, there’s no need to create a sitemap manually. Yoast automatically creates and submits SEO.
Conclusion
Technical SEO forms the foundation of a website’s online success. It’s not just a backend optimization process but a critical step in ensuring your content reaches the right audience and achieves its full potential.
By focusing on key technical SEO factors such as website load speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data, and robust internal linking, you set the stage for better user experiences and higher rankings in search engine results.
Think of Technical SEO as the engine of a high-performance car; without it, even the best-designed vehicle cannot run efficiently.
With tools like Page Speed Insights, Screaming Frog, and Yoast SEO, achieving excellence in technical SEO has become more accessible than ever.
Investing time and effort into these aspects ensures that your website not only attracts search engine crawlers but also delights users, reducing bounce rates and boosting engagement.
As algorithms evolve, staying updated with technical SEO practices is essential to remain competitive in the digital landscape.
Mastering Technical SEO today will prepare your website to adapt, thrive, and lead in 2025 and beyond.
