Technical SEO 2023: 13 Areas to Focus On

SEO is constantly evolving, and it won't be different this year. In this article, we will identify 13 technical SEO areas to focus on in 2023.

Technical SEO has become more important since the dawn of core web vitals (Google algorithm). It plays an integral role in providing users with a better experience—from faster website loading times to improved navigation and accessibility. It is, therefore, essential for businesses looking to optimise their website for both search engine algorithms and user experience.

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What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is a set of practices that helps search engine crawlers identify, crawl, index and rank web pages.

It covers many areas, including website architecture & structure, page speed optimisation, URL structure, site map optimisation and server configuration. All these factors help ensure that your website is well-structured, easy to navigate and optimised for keyword relevance.

Additionally, technical SEO includes redirects, canonical tags and schema markups, which help ensure search engines understand your valuable content.

Identifying & Fixing Issues

Setting up tracking and analytics can help you understand how users interact with your website and identify areas for improvement.

This includes using tools such as Google Analytics to track traffic and user behaviour and Google Search Console to track your website's visibility and ranking.

Secondly, ensure that your site is loading quickly on both desktop and mobile devices, use free tools such as PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse. If you find any issues with page speed or mobile optimisation, the opportunities to fix them are listed in Page Speed Insights.

The three major contributors to slow page speed load are large image sizes, javascript placement and external CSS loading.

HTML tags and structured data

HTML tags and structured data (such as schema markup can provide search engines with more information about your pages and help them understand their relevance and context.

This includes using tags such as H1, H2, and H3 for headings and using schema markup to provide information about your business and products.

URL structure and clean URLs

A clean and descriptive URL structure can make it easier for search engines to understand the content of your pages and improve your technical SEO.

Use keyword-rich URLs and avoiding unnecessary parameters and characters.

Redirects and 404 errors

Redirects allow digital marketers to send users and search engine robots from one URL to another when a page has been removed, changed, moved or to prevent duplication.

Detouring links helps visitors and search engines find the content they need, even if the original page is no longer available.

Well-implemented redirects ensure that visitors continue to have a positive user experience while also helping search engines better understand what your website is about.

For example, if you create a permanent redirect from an old page or domain name to the new one, then search engine bots will know that any links pointing to the old address should be considered as referring links for the new address instead.

Redirects and 404 errors can negatively impact your visibility and ranking. Properly redirecting old or broken links to new pages and handling 404 errors can help improve your user experience and search engine visibility.

You can find harmful links using Screaming Frog or with a comprehensive SEO audit.

Page Speed

Setting up tracking and analytics can help you understand how users interact with your website and identify areas for improvement.Page speed is a key factor to consider for anyone serious about SEO.

In today's world of impatience and distraction, users rarely wait more than a few seconds for a website to load.

Pages that take too long to load can prevent potential customers or visitors from clicking away and searching elsewhere.

Loading pace is essential for increasing re-engagement opportunities, decreasing bounce rates, and improving overall user experience.

It directly impacts your site's credibility and visibility, so it's essential you optimise the loading time of each page on your website.

Using Google's PageSpeed Insights tool, you can gain insight into how quickly your pages are loading on mobile devices and computers.

Improving page load includes optimising images by reducing their size and converting them into next-generation extensions such as webp.

Javascript and CSS files have an enormous impact on speed because they rely on 3rd party responses. It means that before you show the relevant information to the visitors, you have to wait for another server to respond.

A CDN (content delivery network) can significantly speed up your website.

Mobile Optimisation

With the increasing number of users accessing the internet on mobile devices, making sure your website is mobile-friendly is crucial.

This includes using a responsive design, optimising images and videos for mobile, and providing a smooth user experience.

Optimising for mobile can improve your ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase visibility with potential customers.

Your site should be designed with a responsive layout that adapts to different screen sizes, ensuring users get the same experience no matter their device.

Additionally, page speed is necessary on mobile as users expect quick loading times and will likely leave sites that don't meet their expectations.

Security

When running a business online, security is of the utmost importance. A secure sockets layer (SSL) ensures your website is safe from malicious attacks and data theft.

SSL provides an added level of protection for websites, encrypting sensitive information such as passwords, emails, and credit card details, ensuring transmission between servers remains private.

An SSL certificate also verifies that a legitimate organisation or individual owns the domain, providing further assurance that visitors can trust any information exchanged with the site.

Indexability

Indexability refers to the ability of a web page to be included in a search engine's index and then appear in search results.

Having indexable pages is essential for organic SEO because it helps ensure that users can find your website through relevant queries on the major search engines.

Searchers must be able to access all the content found on your website, including static, dynamic or JavaScript-driven pages. To ensure this happens, proper coding practices must be used, making sure all content is crawlable and creating an XML sitemap with links to internal pages so Google can easily keep track of changes on the site.

Website architecture and structure for technical SEO

A well-structured website makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages.

Structure includes:
- Using a clear hierarchy for your pages.
- Using descriptive and relevant URLs.
- Providing a straightforward navigation structure.

Site Maps and robots.txt

Site maps provide a structure for a website, making it easier for search engine crawlers to find content and helping users quickly locate the information they need.

When creating site maps, make sure that each page of your website has its unique URL so that search engines can easily crawl through the entire site.

Additionally, you should also include meta tags on each page so that search engine algorithms can accurately categorise and rank the pages accordingly.

Including an XML version of your site map is also beneficial, which will help inform search engines about all areas of your website.

Finally, remember to use internal links throughout your site; this will help guide visitors and boost your overall technical SEO.

Robots.txt files can be used to specify which pages should not be crawled by search engines.

Duplicate content and canonicalisation

Duplicate content can negatively impact your technical SEO.

Canonicalisation is the process of specifying the preferred version of a web page. Using the rel=" canonical" link element, you can specify which page version should be considered the original.

Site performance monitoring and troubleshooting

It's fundamental to regularly monitor your website's performance and troubleshoot any issues that may arise.

The steps includes monitoring site speed and page load time, tracking your visibility and ranking, and identifying and resolving any errors or issues that may impact your user experience or search engine visibility.

International and hreflang implementation

If your website targets multiple languages or regions, use hreflang tags to specify each page's language and regional targeting.

Following this practice can help improve visibility and ranking in search results for those specific languages and regions.

Conclusion: Technical SEO Benefits

In conclusion, Technical SEO provides several advantages for websites and search engine rankings.

Redirects, Page Speed, Mobile Optimisation, Security, Indexability and Site Maps are all crucial components in improving the user experience and providing search engines with better signals.

Keep up to date with the latest technical SEO techniques to ensure your website runs optimally.

Technical SEO is the most challenging part of all SEO efforts. It has an enormous impact on any website's ranking performance. Request a free consultation if you lack the time or tools to fix these issues.