Technical SEO enhances your site’s quality by making it easy for web crawlers to navigate through quickly. It also makes it user-friendly, thus putting you ahead of competitors.

This is more critical in the sense that if you can rank on top of your competitors, more clients are likely to come your way, therefore, making it easy for you to close more deals.

Nailing down the SEO basics can however cause a lot of headaches to any marketer or entrepreneur, especially if you’re new to it. Don’t fret still. In this guide, we walk you through all the basics, so you know the best technical SEO strategies 2019.

In this quick guide you’ll know:

• What technical SEO is?
• Why technical SEO is essential plus statistics?
• Best ways to utilize technical SEO to increase website ranking for free.

What is Technical SEO?

First things first, SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It’s a creative way of optimizing your web content to rank higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Technical SEO, on the other hand, refers to a creative way of optimizing your website and server to make it easy for search engine spiders to crawl and index it. In optimizing your site for technical SEO, you must follow a specific technical SEO checklist.

The checklist here will guide you on all the fundamental aspects that must be addressed to increase your website’s overall ranking. Here is a summary of the features which your technical SEO checklist 2019 should touch on;

• Use of SSL.
• Mobile friendliness.
• Site speed.
• Site structure optimization.

Why is Technical SEO Important?

A website is never considered complete if it is not responsive. It is also not regarded as responsive if it lacks the core technical SEO features.

These features range from responsive web design to fast loading speed and proper site structure, among others. This implies that you must optimize your website and servers to make it appealing for search engine spiders to crawl it. Otherwise, if the crawlers deem the site to not be up to the mark, chances are high they won’t index it.

Results? Poor web visibility and broken organic ranking. With that being said, let’s dive into the reasons why technical SEO is vital for your site.

More and more clients use their phones for online search

Studies show that there are over 2.7 billion mobile phones worldwide in 2019. Besides, a whopping 52.2 percent of global internet traffic in 2018 came from mobile devices. Typically, mobile phones have become part and parcel of our daily lives. If you wish to rank higher on the SERPs, you must optimize your site to support mobile phones too.

Your customers care about their needs, not your site

Seventy percent of your web visitors will immediately navigate away from your website due to issues like slow loading speed and broken links or irrelevant content etc. Google Analytics defines bounce rates as a percentage of your site’s single-page visits.

It refers to the number of times your web visitors navigated away from your site after a specific time. If you have too high bounce rates, Google is more likely to devalue your site and overlook it when ranking similar sites. Technical SEO audit will help you spot the reasons for the bounce rates, so you can rectify if they’re higher.

It helps you with web security

Web security is usually the deal-breaker when it comes to online dealings. It is even more critical because 68 percent of web visitors aren’t sure if the rules for safeguarding their rights are strong enough. You must have strong web security measures to convince your web visitors to share confidential details on your site.

Google also considers HTTPS as a ranking signal, it offers preferential treatment to sites which follow basic web security guidelines, i.e., installing SSL certificates. Besides, if you don’t install these certificates, the search engine giant will warn your visitors, something which is likely to influence your bounce rates negatively.

How to Boost Your Site’s Search Engine Ranking with Technical SEO

Most marketers find technical SEO a bit mind-numbing, mainly due to online marketing’s dynamic nature plus its changing technological needs. It’s, however, the lifeblood of your site’s existence and business success, therefore, you must nail it to succeed.

Here’s a summary of the critical technical SEO hacks that will propel your site to online glory.

Web design

Make your website design simple with clear navigation menus. Also considering that faulty infographics can turn off your prospects, be sure to use high-quality images that are appealing to the human eye and web crawlers.

Note that issues like poor photo usage and distorted images can also slow down your site’s loading speed and even make it difficult for mobile phone users to see what’s on the page. Use image compression plugins to test your site’s image qualities and adopt mobile-friendly web design templates.

SSL Certificates

It’s prudent that you install dedicated SSL certificates on the site to abide by Google webmaster’s guidelines and preserve your visitors’ privacy. If you’re looking to protect multiple domains, you can use the SAN SSL certificate naming Subject Alternative Name. 

It will help you to protect different domains with just one certificate. It has multiple names and can also be referred to as a Multi-domain certificate, Exchange Certificate, or Unified Communication certificate. Most business owners prefer it over other options.

Use the Robots txt files

The Robots.txt files here act as a guide for web crawlers that have never landed on your site. They guide the crawlers on how to crawl the site, giving them simple roadmaps for easy navigation so they can crawl the site for the most prolonged duration possible.

These files also remove common blocks that can make the crawlers to navigate away to ensure all the necessary pages are indexed. Finally, they also command the crawlers to either enable or disable indexing or delay crawling on pages which take too long to load and give them a picture of your site’s overall structure.

Adopt a Clean Website Structure

You need clean URL structures on your site to enhance the user experience. To achieve this, be sure to get rid of indirect redirects or the poorly formatted redirects.

Also fix the issues due to duplicate content and most importantly, the error codes in your web pages. Another smart way of freeing your page of broken links is to avoid overusing the subdomains.

Bottom Line

Every webmaster knows what works for them or not. Nonetheless, SEO and most importantly, Technical SEO cuts across all the features you may need for your online business’ success. Optimize your site today for a boost in customer trust and an increase in repeat sales.