18/10/24

how poor technical SEO can affect your search engine rankings

and how to sort it

In today’s digital world, having a well-designed website with engaging content is crucial, but it’s not enough on its own. Technical SEO is a key factor that can significantly impact your website’s search engine rankings. It involves optimising your website’s infrastructure to make sure that search engines, like Google, can crawl and index it effectively.

This blog will delve into how technical SEO affects your search engine rankings, providing examples of how fixing technical issues (that’s where we come in) can lead to your website having improved rankings and increased traffic!

We cover in this blog:

What is technical SEO?
How it affects search engines
Fixing technical SEO issues

what is technical seo?

and how to understand it

Technical SEO refers to the optimisation of a website’s technical aspects to enhance its performance, making it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and rank. Some of the main players in this game are:

website speed
mobile-friendliness
crawlability
indexability
secure connections (HTTPS)
structured data

how technical seo affects search engine rankings

improved website speed

Website speed is a critical ranking factor. Have you ever been on a website and it took so long to work, you left? Well that’s not good for rankings. Slow-loading pages can lead to high bounce rates, negatively affecting user experience and search rankings. For instance, Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure page speed and user interaction. By optimising these metrics, websites can improve their visibility in search results. Some include:

Uncompressed images
Excessive javascript

enhanced mobile friendliness

Mobile-friendliness is another crucial aspect of technical SEO, especially since everything is easily accessible via our phones these days. With mobile-first indexing, Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site for ranking and indexing. Making sure that your website is mobile-friendly can enhance its search engine performance.

effective crawling and indexing

For search engines to rank your website, they need to crawl and index it efficiently. Issues such as broken links, duplicate content, and improper use of robots.txt can hinder this process.

secure website (https)

Security is a top priority for both users and search engines. Websites with HTTPS are given preference in search rankings over non-secure ones. A website transitioning from HTTP to HTTPS, will improve its security and build user trust.

utilising structured data

Structured data helps search engines understand your content better, which can improve your search appearance. Implementing schema markup can lead to rich snippets, which can increase click-through rates (CTR). This is especially good if you have an e-commerce site as you want implemented structured data for product listings.

how to fix technical issues for improved rankings

Identifying and fixing technical issues can lead to significant improvements in search engine rankings and overall website performance.

Here are a few steps to consider:

1. conduct a comprehensive technical seo audit

Regular audits help identify technical issues that may be affecting your website’s performance. Here at TIG we can provide you with a technical SEO audit.

2. optimise page speed

This can be done via compressing images and enabling lazy loading and minimise javascript and CSS files.

3. enhance mobile usability

Adopt a responsive design, ensure you have easy navigation on mobile devices as well as web and test your site on various mobile devices.

4. improve crawlability and indexing

Fix broken links and redirect errors, make sure a proper sitemap is submitted, and use robots.txt file to avoid blocking essential content.

5. ensure website security

As previously mentioned, transition to HTTPS if you haven’t already, regularly update your SSL certificate, and implement security measures to protect user data.

6. implement structured data

Use schema markup to provide additional context to your content, and focus on structured data relevant to your industry, such as product schema for e-commerce sites or local business schema for local services.

By addressing technical issues, you can enhance your site’s crawlability, indexability, speed, and security, leading to improved rankings and increased traffic. Regular technical SEO audits and optimisations are so important to maintaining a competitive edge.