What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO refers to website or server updates that have a direct impact on indexation, crawlability, and search rankings of your web pages. Technical SEO includes title tags, page titles, HTTP header responses, metadata, XML sitemaps, and 301 redirects. But it does not include keyword research, analytics, social media strategies, and backlink profile development.
Technical SEO improves the technical aspects of a website to increase the ranking of the pages. It makes a website easier to crawl, understandable and faster for search engines.
Technical SEO Issues and How to Fix Them
We have noticed some common technical issues that are often overlooked. They are simple to fix and fixing them can boost your ranking. Now, let’s look at top SEO issues and ways to fix them.
1. Absence of HTTPS Security
Site security with HTTPS is more important to increase on-page SEO. If the site is not secured, it will immediately show a ‘not secure’ warning with a grey or red background that can cause users to move away from your site,
How to Fix It
You will require an SSL certificate from a Certificate Authority to convert your site to HTTPS. You need to purchase and install the certificate and your site will be secured.
2. Issue With Indexation
If your web pages are not indexed, they do not show up in the search results. You can check it in the Google search bar by typing “site:yoursitename.com”. Google will show the number of indexed pages for your site.
How to Fix It
If your site is not indexed, you can add your URL to Google. If the site is indexed but MORE results are showing than expected, check site hacking spam or older version of the site that does not allow appropriate redirects to your updated site. If the site is indexed but LESS results are showing than expected, audit your indexed content.
3. Absence of XML sitemaps
Google search bots use XML sitemaps to understand more about the site pages so that they can smartly crawl your site. To check this, type your domain name into Google and add “/sitemap.xml” to the end. You will end up with a 404-page error in case of the absence of the sitemap.
How to Fix It
You can use an XML sitemap generating tool or hire a web developer to create a sitemap for you.
4. Missing or Incorrect Robots
Inappropriately configured robots.txt file or missing robots.txt file can damage your organic traffic. To check this. type your website URL into your browser with a “/robots.txt” at the end. If the results show “User-agent: * Disallow: /” then there is an issue.
How to Fix It
You need to talk to your developer immediately. He/she can help you to fix this issue.
5. Meta Robots NOINDEX Set
Appropriately configured NONINDEX tag can indicate pages with lesser importance to Google search bots. Inappropriately configured NONINDEX tag can massively destroy your search visibility by eliminating all pages with a particular configuration from Google’s index. This is a big SEO issue. It can be checked by using site audit technology or viewing the page source through right-click.
How to Fix It
Check with your developer and change NONINDEX to INDEX and NOFOLLOW to FOLLOW.
6. Slow Page Speed
If your site does not load quickly, your users move away from your site and search for another one. It can be checked by using Google PageSpeed Insights.
How to Fix It
There can be some solutions for slow speed such as browser caching improvement, image optimization or compression, JavaScript minifying, and server response time improvement. Talk to your web developer to select the best possible solution to improve site speed.
7. Duplicate Content
As many companies are using their websites, global SEO guidelines, and content management systems, the issue of duplicate content can cause problems. Google ranks only one page if it finds many pages with duplicate content. It prevents the original content from being visible to the target audience.
How to Fix It
Appropriate implementation of hreflang tags and correct configuration can be the solution
8. Missing Alt Tags
Image alt tags help search engine bots understand what the image is all about. Broken images and missing alt tags can damage your SEO visibility.
How to Fix It
Broken images or missing image alt tags can be found by performing regular site audits.
Final Thoughts
If the search engine bots cannot understand your website due to technical SEO issues, they will not rank it in search results. Reviewing the technical SEO issue and finding the best possible solution can improve your SERP visibility.