All those who are starting out in the world of SEO will agree, or at least most of them, that technical SEO is a concept that seems complex, but fundamental.
This is essentially the basis that ensures that a website functions correctly from the point of view of search engines. It is not just about using certain keywords or creating content, but ensuring that it is accessible and understandable, first and foremost.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO, as you might guess from its name, encompasses precisely all the technical aspects of a website, which determine its ability to be crawled and, of course, indexed.
In simpler words, if we look at it as the construction of a house, technical SEO is like the design of the foundations, i.e., they are not directly visible, but they are essential for everything else to work.
Importance of technical SEO
A website can be better than its competitors because of its high quality content, didactically explained, with original images and videos, entertaining and even accurate according to the users’ search intention. All this loses value if search engines cannot crawl, interpret and display that content properly.
In this sense, you should ideally outperform your competitors, but this will not happen if the technical SEO is not well executed. The problem would not be the content itself, but details that prevent search engines from understanding it and displaying it to users.
Investing time, effort, even money in it, improves the chances of long-term success of your website, because it ensures that it is visible and navigable. If you add to this SEO strategies adapted to your case, you get results that make it worthwhile.
This not only improves site visibility, but also increases conversion rates and reinforces brand authority, laying the groundwork for sustained growth in an increasingly competitive digital environment.
Pillars of technical SEO
There are several aspects that can be included within this term, but the main ones can be summarized as follows:
- Good web structure. It makes it easier for both engines and users to navigate your site, as it is intuitive.
- Ease of indexing. Actions taken to make the site easier to read and index.
- Loading speed. A fast site always takes SEO to the next level and user experience the same.
- Responsive design. Today, the experience of browsing a website is not reduced to a single medium, and there are several with different screen sizes.
- Mobile-first optimization. Given its importance and the level of mobile usage, it is not surprising that sites that adapt to different mobile devices are prioritized.
- Site security. Search engines generally do not want to expose users to anything that is insecure, so security issues should be optimized.
- Structured data. Leveraging the structured data language, Schema, further optimizes the information that search engines interpret for highlighting.
Speaking more broadly about these pillars on which to build, we will delve deeper into each one to understand their actual role:
Good web structure
The structure of a website is essential to ensure that both users and search engines can easily navigate and understand its content. If we visualize it as a map, it guides visitors through the site, marking clear paths to find relevant information and making the experience satisfying.
In this context, when you organize your pages in a logical and hierarchical way, you help people find what they are looking for quickly, and of course, you make it easier for search engines, especially Google, which is the most interested, to understand the importance of each page.
To achieve a good structure, use a clear navigation menu, use categories and subcategories, and don’t forget to optimize your URLs. A disorganized structure can be like a maze, preventing your content from being indexed correctly.
Planning a solid structure from the beginning and performing periodic revisions is fundamental for the success of a website. However, if you are aware now that the structure of the website is not the best, it is never too late to fix it.
Ease of indexing
Speaking of indexing, it is one of the most critical processes in technical SEO. It consists of the ability of search engines to read, store and classify the content of a website in their databases.
To ensure that all important pages are indexed, it is necessary to correctly configure the robots.txt file, a key element that tells crawlers which parts of the site they can and cannot explore. A misconfiguration of this file can accidentally block essential content, seriously damaging the site’s ranking.
In addition, the creation and maintenance of an updated XML sitemap is vital, as this file acts as a map for search engines, highlighting priority pages and facilitating their discovery.
Another crucial aspect is to avoid common problems that hinder indexing, such as broken links, duplicate content or 404 errors. These flaws hinder crawling, so use tools like Google Search Console to monitor which pages are being taken into account and which are not, in order to fix any problems.
Loading speed
Have you ever abandoned a page because it took too long to load? Surely it’s something we’ve all done, because no one wants to wait too long to access your content when there are many more options by taking a step back.
It is so fundamental that, in fact, it is one of the most critical factors for SEO. Google wants to offer users fast and efficient results, so a slow site will be penalized. A fact that you may be aware of, but is always worth noting, is that on average, users only wait 3 seconds for a site to load, and if it doesn’t load in that time, they leave.
To improve speed, check aspects such as image size, use of a content delivery network, or CDN, and web hosting. Tools such as PageSpeed Insights and others can be helpful in identifying specific problems and fixing them.
Responsive design
In the past, it was perhaps negotiable for websites not to have a responsive version, because queries were usually made through desktop computers. Today, a site that does not adapt to mobile devices is practically doomed to failure.
Responsive design ensures that the platform looks and functions correctly regardless of whether the user is on a phone, tablet or computer.
So, if it’s right, on the one hand you improve your SEO, and on the other hand it offers a better user experience, increasing the chances of success according to your goals.
Optimize the mobile-first
Closely related to the previous aspect, since a few years ago, specifically since 2017, Google started testing mobile-first indexing, which means that it prioritizes the mobile version of a site when determining its ranking.
Although several tests were carried out at the beginning, it was gradually implemented over time until it became a fact how vital it considers you in 2019. Therefore, it is crucial that your site is perfectly adapted to mobile devices.
Then check that your design is responsive, i.e. that it adjusts correctly to the size and resolution of any screen. Also, make sure that all the elements are accessible from a smartphone: good-sized touch buttons, easy-to-use drop-down menus and readable text without the need to zoom in.
Don’t forget to test your site on real devices and use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to identify specific problems. Remember that a bad experience in this context negatively affects both your SEO and the user’s perception of your brand, and we don’t want that, right? Right.
Website security
Security not only protects users, but also plays an important role in SEO. Google prioritizes secure sites, identified by the use of the HTTPS protocol, over those that use HTTP. The good thing is that if your platform is the latter and not the former, this is easy to solve from the hosting, installing the SSL certificate.
The reality is that configuring an SSL certificate is not optional, although it may seem so for a moment, it is rather a necessity, at least for those who wish to succeed with their project. This protocol encrypts the communication between the browser and the server, guaranteeing the user’s privacy and trust.
Without it, browsers will directly mark your site as ‘not secure’ just before the domain name, in the red bar, so it will be quite obvious. Such a fact could discourage visits and decrease your positioning.
In addition, protect your site against attacks such as SQL injections, malware and phishing through security tools and practices such as regularly updating your CMS, plugins and themes. Implementing web firewalls and performing regular backups is also critical to ensure a secure and reliable experience.
Structured data
Thanks to structured data, we are giving additional information about the content in a way that Google and others can understand more adequately.
For example, defining them makes it more practical to display highlights such as reviews, prices, events or recipes directly in search results, improving the visibility of your content and increasing the likelihood of attracting clicks.
Not including them means losing the opportunity to positively differentiate yourself from the competition in the search results, being more competitive.To make the most of this resource, it is crucial to use recognized standards such as Schema, which is the language of structured data, and to test with tools such as Google’s Rich Results Test, ensuring that everything is correctly configured.
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