What is technical SEO or technical SEO? What is the importance of technical SEO in website SEO? What does the technical part of SEO include? What changes are needed for a website to be technically optimized? Can technical SEO be done by SEO experts or is it the work of programmers and site developers?

For search engines to show the contents of a website and online business to users before competitors, that website must have certain characteristics – that is, SEO. Site SEO is divided into 3 parts: Technical SEO, On-site SEO, and Off-site SEO.

This comprehensive guide is dedicated to discussing technical SEO. In this guide, we will answer all the questions raised about this part of SEO, and we will discuss the main topics in technical SEO that every SEO expert should master. The most important topics in technical SEO, which we will explain in the following, are:

  • What is technical SEO?
  • The great importance of technical SEO for site SEO and ranking in search engines
  • The main components of technical SEO
  • Tools for measuring website optimization from a technical point of view
  • SEO technical tips

What is technical SEO or technical SEO?

Every website consists of two main parts: the appearance and contents of the website that we (users) see (front-end) and the parts that we do not see (back-end). The back-end or server side is the part that contains the website codes and performs information processing about the server and database.

When a website is going to be SEO, all its parts must be optimized for search engines. In other words, it’s not just the appearance of the website or its contents that should have features and standards, the website code and parts that we don’t see should also have features. Because robots or search engine crawlers crawl into those parts of the website that we don’t see.

Some robots crawl into the pages of each website and check and record them so that it is possible to rank each page. Robots also read and understand website codes. For this reason, the more optimized the technical parts of the website, the easier and faster the search engine bots can crawl inside the website pages, understand the contents of the pages, and register or index them. These steps must be followed to rank the pages of any website.

All website SEO starts from here when the search engine bots enter your website and crawl the various pages of the website. This process must be followed because search engines work like this:

Crawling – Indexing – Ranking

Technical SEO is a set of actions that must be taken to make it easier and faster for robots to crawl and index website pages to help improve the website’s ranking in search engines. Technical SEO is one of the three parts of site SEO (technical SEO, internal SEO, and external SEO) and without it, no website can be SEO.

The Backlinko website, which is one of the reference websites in the field of SEO, has defined technical SEO as follows:

Technical SEO is the process of ensuring that a website meets the technical requirements of modern search engines with the goal of improved organic rankings. Important elements of technical SEO include crawling, indexing, rendering, and website architecture.

Why is technical SEO extremely important in website SEO?

In today’s digital world, having a strong online presence is critical to the success of any online business. Website optimization for search engines (SEO/Search Engine Optimization) plays an essential role in strengthening the online presence of any website (business/brand) and attracting organic traffic to it.

If your website is not SEO optimized, when a user searches for a service or product in Google, instead of your website, he will see the competitor’s name and the link to the website of your competitor or competitors first. In other words, if you cannot show search engines and Google that your website has followed the standards and principles set by them in website design, user experience, and website content; You can’t rank well in search results.

There is a misconception that content SEO and external link building are the most important aspects of site SEO. But technical SEO is as important and decisive as internal SEO and content, and it is not an exaggeration to claim that even the most important part of SEO is the technical part. If the crawling bots cannot enter the website pages, the search engine will not see that website, and the job of checking whether the website meets the important factors in the ranking or not and the ranking will not reach it. As a result, that website will not be displayed to any user in the search results.

Therefore, if a business has the best and most beautiful website and all the principles of content SEO, internal and external SEO are followed in the production and publication of content for that website, when the crawlers cannot crawl on the website pages and index it, the website is not SEO. As if that website does not exist in search engines.

So, site SEO starts with technical SEO.

The difference between technical SEO internal SEO and external SEO

Technical SEO, internal SEO, and external SEO are all important and all the principles and techniques related to each one must be done completely for the website to be considered SEO. Therefore, although technical SEO is very important, it should also be said that all 3 parts of SEO are complementary to each other.

Technical SEO paves the website and its pages for the entry and crawling of search engine bots. Internal SEO and content SEO, which is the main topic of internal SEO, includes all the actions and techniques that must be done inside the pages and contents of the website (blog site contents) so that search engines make sure that the internal SEO guidelines are followed.

External SEO is a set of actions that site SEO experts collaborate with digital marketing experts outside the website. The main goal of external SEO is to link to the website and its contents from other websites and social networks and to attract users from all over the web.

What are the main technical components of SEO?

Technical SEO guarantees 3 important things:

Crawlers can easily enter your website crawl between pages and index them.

The speed of loading and displaying the contents of each page is optimal and does not delay or make the user dissatisfied.

Mobile users can also easily interact with the website with their devices.

Besides bots and crawling and indexing, technical SEO is also about improving the user experience. For Google, nothing is more important than user satisfaction, and if a website cannot satisfy the user, it will not rank well in Google results. Website speed and responsive design are among the most important factors that play a role in ensuring user satisfaction from interacting with the website.

When a responsive website is designed, the size of the page and its elements are automatically adjusted to the screen size of the user’s device (mobile, tablet, etc.). Responsive website design ensures that users who interact with the website on mobile will see all the pages of the website correctly and easily work with it.

Therefore, technical SEO components can be divided into 3 categories:

  • Actions related to improving the crawling of robots on the website,
  • Measures that guarantee website speed and
  • Actions that comply with Mobile-first indexing standards.

1. Architecture and overall structure of the website

The speed and ease of entry, crawling, and exit of search engine bots on any website and the speed of indexing pages depends on the overall architecture of the website, the structure, and the map that connects all the pages of a website. The point here is that robots should not only be able to find all pages but should also be able to understand and understand the relationship between pages (hierarchies).

All the pages of a website must be placed in a specific hierarchy and defined and connected. This is made possible by having a logical and orderly structure that connects each page to its parent page (larger category) and ultimately to the home page. In such a structure, the robot can easily enter from one page, go to all pages related to that category, and finally reach the main page of that category.

To help the crawlers move through the website and index the pages, in addition to the logical and regular structure of the website (which is usually a tree structure), it is necessary to introduce the sitemap to search engines and Google to show the structure of the website and the pages and the relationship between them. Understand them more easily and quickly.

Of course, in addition to paying attention to those things, it is necessary to be careful and aware of the fact that errors may always occur in crawling (crawling) robots for any website. Therefore, SEO specialists should be familiar with the types of crawl errors and how to fix them.

The last thing that is related to setting up the overall structure of the website and helps SEO experts to logically and hierarchically categorize topics and contents (pages) is the use of tags or labeling for each category. For example, if there are 8 topics to be covered on a website, the SEO expert can define a tag for each topic (category) and place that tag at the end of each blog post related to that category. When the user clicks on that tag, he enters a page where he can see all the content related to that category in one place.

The use of tags is not required for all sites. The SEO expert should check the website, the field of work, and the number of topics and then make a decision. Correct and basic tagging helps to improve the site’s SEO.

Tree structure and site navigation

The best type of website page architecture to help crawl robots is called Web Structure Tree (which you can see in the image below). In this structure, robots understand the logical connection between pages. Each page belongs to a larger category and all are branched off from the website’s main page (home).

Another important advantage of this structure is that it helps SEO experts to identify orphan pages. Orphan pages are pages of a website that have not been linked to any other page on the website. These pages are like isolated islands inside a website that cannot be accessed from other pages. Therefore, the crawlers cannot find them and they are never seen.

The tree structure of the site and the correct and logical categorization of pages are also extremely important for setting up website navigation. The better the navigation of a website, the better and more satisfying the users will have, and as a result, a more positive user experience from interacting with the site.

Adding the breadcrumb menu to the website to organize the pages of the site as much as possible and show its tree structure and order, guide the crawlers, improve technical SEO, and improve the user experience, is one of the best techniques that SEO experts of any website should not neglect. Adding this menu is the work of the technical team, and SEO specialists should implement this technique with their cooperation.

XML Sitemap

The job of a sitemap is to guide the crawlers within the pages of a website so that all pages are indexed. A sitemap is a list of URLs of a website that shows the structure of your site and how the different pages (main and subcategories) are organized and categorized.

XML Sitemap is created when you have created the site and various pages and are ready to show it to Google. With this sitemap, you can tell Google and its crawlers what pages to see and index and what pages not to see.

With XML Sitemap, SEO experts provide search engines with important information about each page of the website:

Where is this page located on your website (<loc>http://www.example.com/mypage</loc>),

When was this page last changed or updated?

(<lastmod>2021-5-10</lastmod>),

How often is this page changed or updated (<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>),

How important is this page on your website (<priority>1</priority>)?

Creating and updating an XML sitemap is not a difficult task, and SEO tools and useful WordPress plugins will help you with this task.

2. Website speed

Optimizing the overall structure of the website and sitemap for search engines is the first step in technical SEO, and after that, it is time to optimize the speed of the website. When the speed of loading and displaying website pages is low and it takes a long time for the content and photos of a page to be fully displayed or for interaction to occur, the user becomes dissatisfied and leaves the website. This is a negative point for the website in the eyes of search engines. Therefore, website speed is not only one of the important factors in evaluating the technical condition of websites, it is also a factor for measuring the user experience of websites.

SEO experts must work with the technical team of each project (website programmers and developers) to optimize website speed because SEO experts cannot do most of the necessary actions to increase website speed. Cooperation with the technical team in this case is also necessary from another point of view: not all websites have the same technical characteristics. Some are developed on content management systems such as WordPress, and others are custom sites that are completely coded.

In addition to that, the type of website, the volume and variety of its contents, and website traffic are considered factors that are necessary and effective in choosing the necessary measures to improve speed. The steps required to increase the speed of WordPress sites in general are slightly different from the steps that should be taken to increase the speed of WordPress websites with high traffic.

The first step that an SEO expert should take to optimize site speed is to evaluate the speed with Google’s PageSpeed ​​Insights tool. In addition to that tool, it is possible to use various Google Chrome extensions for site SEO to evaluate website speed and other components of technical SEO and internal and external SEO.

The second step is to discuss and consult with the technical team on this issue. Among the things that must be discussed with the technical team are JavaScript SEO and SSR. JavaScript code processing and server-side rendering (SSR) both affect site speed and how easy it is for crawlers to access.

Also note that whatever plan you have to increase site speed, you must optimize the website based on Google’s Core Web Vitals standards. If you do not do this, any other measures to optimize the speed of the site will be insufficient and the technical SEO of the website will suffer.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals standards or metrics are for measuring and evaluating part of the user experience of all pages of a website. Google uses a total of the following 3 criteria for this measurement:

  • LCP: It represents the time it takes for the largest content element of the page to be displayed to the user.
  • INP: is a measure that focuses on user interaction with the website and has replaced the FID measure.
  • CLS: Used to measure Visual Stability or the stability of the visual elements of each page.

The mentioned criteria are only a part of the criteria and standards that Google reviews to evaluate the experience of user interaction with the pages of a site. Therefore, optimizing a website for Core Web Vitals metrics is necessary, but not sufficient.

In addition, the website must be secure and have the HTTPS protocol or secure hypertext transmission protocol, and its design and speed must be optimized for all types of mobile devices. Optimizing the speed of the site and its relationship with the user interaction experience with the website is so important that in addition to completing the Core Web Vitals criteria, it is necessary to consider 3 other criteria:

  • FCP: This measure shows the time when the first elements of a page (text or image) become visible.
  • TBT: This measure shows the loading time and response time of website pages to users’ clicks.
  • TTI: A performance metric that measures how long a page takes to respond to user interactions.

AMP and website optimization for mobile

It is important for search engines that users of all types of mobile phones have a satisfactory experience of interacting with the website. For this reason, the website should be optimized for both desktop and mobile users.

If the website has a responsive design, SEO experts should not worry too much about the website being optimized for mobile. Otherwise, in cooperation with the project’s technical team, they should make sure that the website is displayed correctly and completely on mobile phones.

The speed of loading and displaying the website on mobile should also be optimized. For this, WordPress websites use a plugin called AMP.

Do not neglect the optimization of the website for mobile phones, because the non-optimization of the website and its speed for mobile phones is one of the factors that increases the jump rate or bounce rate of the website and harms the SEO of the site a lot.

3. Duplicate content and canonical tag

In technical SEO, the website must be fully prepared for crawling robots. However, the main purpose of making it easy for crawlers to enter the website is for them to see and index the pages. The sooner crawlers visit the website and see different pages and new and updated content, the faster search engines display them in the search results. However, crawlers have limitations to visiting a website.

Every website has a certain crawl budget. It’s not like crawlers visit the website every time an SEO expert asks for it or new content is published on the website. Search engine crawlers spend a certain amount of time and energy crawling the pages of any website.

When the website does not publish updated content and does not have many pages and is not optimized according to technical SEO standards, it has a lower crawl budget (that is, crawlers do not visit that website early and do not stay there for long).

It is because of this limitation in crawling that SEO experts try to invite crawlers to the most important pages of the site and do not introduce them to pages that are not important or are not made to show in the results or pages that have the same content. One way to achieve this goal and maintain the crawl budget for important pages is to introduce a sitemap, which can be used to tell Google which pages to see and which pages not to see.

Another way is to get help from codes. SEO experts can guide search engines to index pages with the help of codes (HTML tags). The following 2 tags are among the most important and useful tags in this case:

The noindex tag, which is placed in the <head> section of the page, tells robots not to crawl and index this page.

The canonical tag is used to separate the original content from similar content or copies of it on a website and introduces the original content page to the crawlers for indexing.

Sometimes there may be several pages with similar or identical content on a website. This problem is very common in n-store websites (store site cannibalization) that have many similar products.

In general, having similar or identical content on several pages of a website (duplicate content) is not good and usually damages the site’s SEO. This is why the canonical tag is used to separate the original content from the duplicate content.

The canonical tag is placed in the <head> section of duplicate or similar content and tells robots and search engines that this page has similar or copied content from the content of another page (the main page to be indexed).

SEO technical measurement tools

How should SEO experts make sure that the site structure makes sense, that there are no orphan pages, and that the search engine reads the sitemap? Or how should they find duplicate content? How can they be sure of the optimal speed of the website?

Various SEO site tools help the SEO expert measure the steps he has taken to optimize the technical components of SEO (architecture and site map, site speed, and copy content).

In addition to the search console tool, which is the most important site SEO tool and informs SEO specialists of website errors and problems (including errors related to technical SEO), the following tools are useful for evaluating technical SEO:

Site Audit is the famous Semrush tool for site SEO and a comprehensive and complete evaluation of the website’s crawling and indexing status. SEO professionals can use this tool to find orphan pages, copy content, and check website structure.

Screaming Frog has a tool called SEO Spider that provides valuable data about the technical SEO status of the website to the SEO expert. In addition to finding duplicate content, showing a visual map of the website structure, and creating an XML map, one of the most important features of this tool is finding broken links and pages that have errors. The presence of broken links and pages whose content is not displayed for various reasons negatively affects the user experience and, as a result, SEO.

Lighthouse is a practical tool that is used to evaluate the overall performance of pages and measures of page loading and display speed (including TBT, LCP, and FCP measures). This tool can also be used to evaluate the status of the codes and their optimization.

SEO technical tips

SEO experts using technical SEO guidelines and standards and in cooperation with the technical team must ensure that the website is in the best possible condition for crawling search engine bots and indexing.

In addition to optimizing the structure, map, and speed of the website identifying copy content, and introducing important pages to be indexed by search engines, there are several other helpful points that SEO professionals should consider to be successful in technical SEO.

The important technical SEO points that every website SEO specialist should know are as follows:

  • Use schema to make it easier for search engines to quickly check the content of a page. The contents of the pages should also have a logical structure.
  • Redirect broken links.
  • Be familiar with the types of site errors (400 and 500 series errors) and how to fix them.
  • Keep yourself up to date with the latest technical SEO techniques.
  • Constantly check the SEO technical and technology status of competing websites.

Technical SEO or site technical SEO is one of the three parts of site SEO. The goal of technical SEO is that the website has features that make the access and entry of search engine robots to the pages and the process of checking and indexing quick and easy. Until a page is indexed in search engines, it will not be ranked and will not be displayed to users among the search results.

The main technical components of SEO are:

  1. The structure and architecture of the website must be logical so that search engine robots can easily crawl between pages and understand the relationship between them.
  2. Website speed should be optimized for loading and display on desktop and mobile. Site speed is a measure that has a direct effect on user experience and user interaction with the website.
  3. HTML tags can be used to indicate content to be indexed by bots or tell them not to index a page. With the help of these tags, robots can understand the relationship between the original and similar content.

Technical SEO implementation also needs the help of the project’s technical team. Some actions can be done by SEO experts and plugins can be used to optimize some things. Various tools help SEO experts evaluate the technical SEO status of the site and what needs to be done to improve it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *