The same goes for a website. You want to make sure that the main channel you direct your marketing efforts to holds up to the technical expectations of your target groups. Give your awesome content the best conditions to be found and convert your visitors into customers.

Technical SEO is a bit … technical

Less tech-savvy people can find technical SEO confusing - and that’s no surprise. The deeper you dig into the world of 404s, sitemaps and page speed, the more complex the solutions to your problems can get. Many issues need input from a web developer, but before you go ahead and initiate a technical SEO project, you can check the basics yourself.

Is your website secure?

What is the difference between http://www.yoursite.com and https://www.yoursite.com? It’s small but very important: the “s” in https. It tells Google – and visitors – that your website has a security certificate that encrypts, for instance, all forms that are submitted and all transactions that take place. Google’s ranking algorithm takes the certificate into account, which means that a secure site equals better ranking in the search results. A lock icon next to your website’s URL means that it is secure. Is there no lock? If so, make it a priority to fix this.

Are your pages loading fast?

Everyone likes a fast-loading website, this goes for both humans and bots. The patience of the average website visitor is constantly decreasing, and Google, therefore, favors sites that serve users with content that quickly answers search queries. Yes, user experience is also about look and feel, but if no one cares to wait for the magic to happen, why invest in it?

Test important pages on your website in Google’s tool PageSpeed Insights to understand what elements you can optimize to better serve your precious visitors with the experience that they deserve. Pay extra attention to image file sizes, third-party scripts (chatbots, remarketing tools, etc.), and themes. You will most probably be able to identify factors that negatively impact the overall user experience of your website.

Is your website mobile friendly?

Yes, it’s still important that websites are optimized for mobile devices. Even if the majority of your audience uses desktop browsers, Google likes to see – and rank – mobile-friendly sites. Head over to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and enter the URL of your site to see if there is anything that Google marks as an issue.

Are there any dead ends?

Most websites are constantly changing, both regarding structure and content. This is a good thing that shows your visitors that you are adapting to their needs by providing the best answers to their search queries. But what about the pages that you decide to delete or move in the process? The CMS will take care of those, right? No. You should always redirect these pages to corresponding ones in your website structure. Use Google Search Console (a free and essential tool) to find missing pages in Google’s index and make sure to redirect them.

Is your sitemap up to snuff?

A sitemap is essentially a list of all the important content your website contains, including language variations. Most often, it is found at https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. The purpose of a sitemap is to simplify Google’s indexing, and it should be updated automatically when you add or remove content. If your sitemap contains a lot of content (pages, videos, images), consider splitting it up into smaller sitemaps to further simplify the indexing process. Also, make sure that the sitemap contains only one version of your content and that all links start with https.

Next steps

In May 2021, Google started rolling out an update of its ranking algorithm, called Core Web Vitals. The algorithm use data from Chrome users to describe to site owners what opportunities there are for further optimization. The examples above are some of the important factors that today’s algorithm takes into consideration and it’s a good decision to optimize for them before diving into the upcoming ones. And keep in mind that SEO should always be considered a long-term investment. After you have made any changes, revisit the pages you have optimized to see how your KPIs are impacted. Want to dig deeper? Contact us, and we’ll help you with a solid SEO strategy.