Over 8.5 billion Google searches happening daily, it's essential to rank on the first page of search results. Did you know only 0.63% of searchers click on results from the second page!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for improving visibility and driving organic traffic. Technical SEO focuses on optimizing your site’s structure and performance, ensuring search engines can crawl, understand, and index your content.

This includes optimizing things like website navigation, clean URLs, header tags, and schema markup to give search engines better context about your content. It also involves fixing broken links, improving website speed, and making sure your website is mobile-friendly.

SEO Foundation Checks

1. Crawling and indexing

Crawling and indexing are essential for search engines to discover and rank your content. If search engines can't access your website properly, even the best content won’t show up in search results.

To ensure smooth crawling and indexing -

• Organize your site with a clear structure.

• Use a logical URL hierarchy.

• Implement effective internal linking.

• Use descriptive metadata (title tags, meta descriptions).

Tools to monitor crawling and indexing

• Google Search Console: Track indexing status, crawl errors, and sitemaps.

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Identify broken links and duplicate content.

• Ahrefs Site Audit: Comprehensive SEO audit including crawlability checks.

2. Site Structure

A well-organized site structure is important for both your website visitors and search engines. It makes it easy for users to find what they're looking for, while also helping search engines crawl and index your content more effectively.

When your site is set up logically, it keeps visitors engaged, lowers bounce rates, and can boost your rankings on search engines.

3. URL structure

The URL structure of your website plays a key role in its SEO and can affect how it shows up in search results. Search engines prefer simple, descriptive URLs that indicate the content of the page. Avoid using random characters, session IDs, or parameters that may confuse search engines.

Tips for optimizing URL structure

• Use relevant keywords that reflect the page content.

• Keep URLs short and easy to read.

• Avoid unnecessary parameters or session IDs.

Example of good vs. bad URLs

• ✅ Good: yourwebsite.com/blog/seo-best-practices

• ❌ Bad: yourwebsite.com/pageID=123&cat=4

Using parameters and session IDs in URLs can make it harder for search engines to properly crawl and index your website.

Performance & User Experience

4. Website Speed

Website speed is how fast a website loads and displays content. This measurement includes how quickly images, videos, text, and other elements appear. Faster websites provide better engagement, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion rates. Google also uses site speed as a ranking factor, so optimizing your site speed is crucial.

Tools for measuring and improving speed

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Provides actionable recommendations.

• To keep your site running fast, regularly check its performance using Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool measures important factors like load time, page stability, and how quickly your site responds.

By following these suggestions, such as optimizing images and improving caching, you can boost site speed, improve user experience, and increase search rankings.

5. Mobile optimization

Now a days majority of web traffic coming from mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional, it’s essential. A site that works well on mobile improves user experience, boosts search engine rankings, and increases engagement. By using responsive design and testing regularly, you can ensure your site works smoothly on any device.

Best practices for mobile optimization

• Implement responsive design that adjusts your site’s layout based on screen size.

• Using flexible grids, scalable images, and CSS media queries creates a design that adapts to any screen size.

• Test your site regularly on mobile devices to ensure functionality.

Tools

• Google’s Mobile-Friendly test check things like text readability, clickable areas, and load time.

Fixing problems like slow loading or hard-to-click buttons ensures a better experience for users and improves your site’s search engine ranking. Regularly testing your site on different mobile devices helps spot and resolve any issues.

6. Schema markup (Structured Data)

Schema markup is a form of structured data that helps search engines understand the content of your website in greater detail. This data includes details like contact info, logos, product prices, reviews, and events. Adding schema to your pages can enable rich snippets in search results, which may increase your click-through rates.

How to Use Schema Markup?

• Identify the type of content (e.g., Product, Recipe, Local Business, Article, FAQ).

• Implement the appropriate schema code in your HTML.

• Refer to Schema.org for guidance. It provides definitions and usage guidelines to implement the right Schema for your website.

Tools to Generate and Test Schema Markup

• Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper: Generate schema markup easily.

• Google’s Rich Results Test: Verify & check if your schema markup is correctly implemented

• Schema Creator by Raven (Third-party tool): Helps generate various types of schema markup.

Website Trust & Security

7. HTTPS and Security

Website security is crucial for protecting user data, preventing cyber threats, and building trust with both users and search engines. Implementing strong security measures like HTTPS encryption, regular updates, and security plugins helps protect against malicious attacks.

Security best practices

• Use HTTPS encryption to secure your site.

• Regularly update your CMS, plugins, and themes to prevent vulnerabilities.

• Install security plugins and firewalls to protect against attacks.

• Implement practices like strong passwords, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and regular backups.

Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal, and browsers clearly label non-HTTPS sites as "Not Secure," which can deter visitors.

8. International and localization (Hreflang)

If your website targets multiple countries or languages, international SEO is crucial. It ensures users see content that's relevant to their location and language. It involves strategies like using hreflang tags, targeting regions through domain setups and geotargeting, and localizing content to fit cultural and language differences.

Target Specific Countries and Languages

• Hreflang tags are HTML attributes that tell search engines which language and region your pages are targeting.

• Use appropriate domain structures (e.g., country-code top-level domains like .fr, subdomains like fr.example.com, or subdirectories like example.com/fr/).

• Localize your content to meet cultural and language preferences.

• Localization isn’t just translation and includes things like currency, units of measurement, date formats, and imagery that resonate with local users.

9. Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Duplicate content refers to the same or very similar content appearing on multiple pages within a website or across different sites. Duplicate content can confuse search engines and dilute your SEO efforts.

Canonicalization is the process of telling search engines which version of a page is the "master" or preferred version you want indexed and ranked.

How to handle duplicate content?

• Implement canonical tags on pages with duplicate content.

• Regularly audit your website for duplicate content.

Tools to identify duplicate content

• Sitebulb: Provides a Duplicate Content report and checks canonical tag implementation.

• Screaming Frog: Crawls your site to identify duplicate content issues and report on canonical tag implementation.

• Google Search Console: Reports on canonicalization errors and pages that Google chose not to index.

Properly using these tools and techniques helps improve SEO, prevents search engines from indexing unwanted duplicates, and enhances user experience.

Global & Ongoing SEO Practices

10. Internal Linking & XML Sitemap Optimization

Internal linking plays an important role in both site navigation and SEO. It helps users easily find relevant content while also enabling search engines to crawl and understand how pages are connected. A well-structured internal linking strategy passes link authority to key pages, boosting their rankings.

Best practices

• Regularly audit your internal links to ensure proper distribution and fix broken links.

• Use tools like Moz Pro, Screaming Frog, and Ahrefs to optimize your internal linking structure.

An XML sitemap acts as a guide for search engines, ensuring important pages are crawled and indexed efficiently. Keeping it updated allows search engines to discover new or updated pages quickly and prioritize the most important ones based on metadata like last modified dates.

Tools for sitemap optimization

• Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Screaming Frog help monitor sitemap health and identify any issues. Regular audits can enhance your site's visibility and indexing.

11. Core Web Vitals Optimization

Core Web Vitals are a set of user experience metrics developed by Google to measure and improve website performance. These metrics focus on three essential aspects: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

How to improve Core Web Vitals?

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Measures how quickly the main content loads (ideally under 2.5 seconds).

• FID (First Input Delay): Measures how quickly a page responds when a user first interacts with it (like clicking a button, should be under 100ms). Note: FID is being replaced by INP (Interaction to Next Paint).

• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Measures how much elements on the page unexpectedly shift around while the page is loading (should be 0.1 or lower).

Tools to Improve Core Web Vitals

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Analyzes LCP, FID, and CLS with improvement tips.

• Lighthouse: Audits page speed, accessibility, and overall performance.

• CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report): Provides real-world user experience data.

• Ahrefs Site Audit & DebugBear: Detects and fixes Core Web Vitals issues.

12. Keeping Up with Algorithm Changes

Google frequently updates its algorithm to improve search results. It’s important to stay informed about changes to ensure your site remains optimized. Algorithm updates often focus on improving content relevance, user experience, and page quality.

How to stay updated?

• Monitor search rankings and traffic.

• Use tools like Accuranker, MozCast, and SEMrush to track performance.

• Focus on producing high-quality, user-focused content.

Final Thoughts

Technical SEO isn't always the most visible part of online marketing, but it's one of the most crucial. It ensures your website has a strong foundation that allows search engines to find, understand, and rank your valuable content effectively.

By paying attention to factors like crawling, site structure, speed, mobile-friendliness, schema, security, and more, you not only improve your site's visibility but also create a faster, more reliable, and more user-friendly experience. This technical health supports all your other SEO and marketing efforts.

Ignoring technical SEO is like building a beautiful store on a shaky foundation – eventually, it will cause problems. Making technical optimization an ongoing part of your strategy is essential for sustained growth and visibility in competitive search results.

Ready to ensure your website has a solid technical foundation? Get a Technical SEO Audit or Learn More about our services to start improving your website’s performance today!