Did you know that 55% of trackable website traffic comes from organic search? This means that the majority of searchers on the Internet are finding websites that have done well with their search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a collection of tips and tricks that website creators use to make sure that their websites end up at or near the top of search engine results pages. There are several kinds of SEO, including technical SEO.

That’s why we made Technical SEO: The Complete Guide. Technical SEO focuses more on the nitty-gritty aspects of your website that you may not have thought to pay attention to. But, with our help, you’ll be a technical SEO expert in no time.
Just keep reading.

What Is Technical SEO?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technical SEO focuses on the technical requirements that a website should meet in order to follow classic search engine optimization guidelines. The better these technical requirements are, the better the likelihood that the website will end up higher on the search engine results page.

Technical SEO covers many aspects of a website. These include website architecture, crawling, indexing, rending, and more.
The specificities of technical SEO work together with content strategy and link-building strategy to help your website pages rank higher in search results. A consistent, thorough combination of all of these strategies will help your pages get better visibility.

 

Why Is Technical SEO Important?

 

The main reason that technical SEO has become so important is that search engines can only do so much. They’re skilled and effective, but they aren’t perfect at crawling and indexing. Given that these tasks are important for identifying web pages, you want to make sure that search engines can do this flawlessly.

Although, as we said, search engines can’t do this well. So, you have to make adjustments to your website to ensure that you’re helping the search engines understand what your web pages are about.

If a search engine can’t figure out what your website is about, it’ll move onto another without ranking yours. So, you want to make sure that you’re doing more than just creating good content.

You want to present the content well and make it easy for visitors to navigate. That’s technical SEO.

 

A Brief History of Technical SEO

 

Technical SEO hasn’t been around long, but it has come a long way. Since the early 2000s, technical SEO has been growing in importance. And, with it, strategies and needs have been expanding:

• The early 2000s: Technical SEO is born from the importance of website crawlability and indexability
• The mid-2000s: Keyword-stuffing and link-buying dominate while Google struggles to keep up with these tactics
• The late 2000s: Google begins to catch up, rendering keyword-stuffing and link-buying ineffective
• The early 2010s: Google encourages quality content and linking, clamping down on ranking privileges
• The mid-2010s: Developers focus on delivering great experiences while using creativity in SEO practices
• 2015-2016: Content becomes spread across multiple platforms and voices
• 2017: Mobile use surpasses desktop use as voice search and digital assistants become more prominent
• 2018-2020: Search has taken over and SEO is everywhere

As the needs of consumers have changed, SEO guidelines have changed, too. It’s also important to note how important Google’s operations were in forming technical SEO as we know it today.

A New Approach: Site, Search, and Content Optimization

 

There are three, main goals when it comes to technical SEO:

 

• You want to optimize the site for visitors
• You want to make sure that visitors have access to your web pages through search engines and social networks
• You want to create engaging, high-quality content across multiple channels

Thus, we should be looking at the site, search, and content optimization.

Most importantly, we should be working to get in front of our customers wherever they are. This means that our websites need to work on mobile phones. And, we need to branch out to social media sites for advertising.

 

6 Thinking Hats & Technical SEO: A Complete Guide

 

SEO is formed of many frameworks of thinking. The six major building blocks of SEO are different colored hats.
You may have heard of White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, but this take on six different colors brings a new element of structure to search engine optimization.

Each hat represents a different way of thinking that can help us get the outcomes that we’re looking for. Different professionals may need to wear different hats in order to get the most out of the SEO approach.

 

1. White Hat

 

White Hat SEO focuses on facts, statistics, and data. It’s the most objective piece of SEO strategy. Data analysts are the most likely to need this approach in order to get a starting point for website analytics.

 

2. Yellow Hat

 

Yellow Hat SEO focuses on the optimistic points that analysts may forget. They look at the benefits that different strategies may have for the brand and its customers.

One or many people can wear this hat. As long as one person can break down the positives of a potential strategy, your company will be able to move forward with positive thinking.

 

3. Black Hat

 

The person who wears the Black Hat gets to play the “devil’s advocate.” This is the individual who points out all of the problems and challenges that could happen.

Black Hat SEO may seem like the negative side of SEO. But, it’s important to seek out all of the potential problems so that you can make changes as needed.

 

4. Red Hat

 

Red Hat SEO focuses on feelings and emotions. Opposite of White Hat SEO, Red Hat SEO focuses on gut instincts towards changes and projects.Sometimes, the emotional approach helps us make better choices than we would with data.

 

5. Green Hat

 

The Green Hat represents creativity and spontaneity. The one who wears this hat need to be able to see new opportunities whenever there is a problem.Often, it’s a creative approach that can help get teams out of these kinds of struggles.

 

6. Blue Hat

 

Blue Hat SEO focuses on organizing the thinking process. The person wearing the Blue Hat is the one who will pull together all the loose thoughts and strands.

The Blue Hat keeps things focused so that the job can get done. You may find that the project manager is the best one to take on this role.

 

The Foundations of Technical SEO

 

There are five factors that we must consider when we’re creating a technical SEO strategy:

• Crawlability
• Indexability
• Accessibility
• Rankability
• Clickability

All of these abilities work together to make a very strong website that is easy to navigate while remaining enjoyable.

 

1. Crawlability

 

Crawlability refers to the chance that search engine bots are going to be able to find a URL. If a URL isn’t crawlable, it won’t show up in search results. Keep in mind that URLs that aren’t crawlable can still be accessed by visitors even if they aren’t visible to bots. A technical SEO expert can conduct an audit in which they can uncover the pages that bots aren’t finding.

 

2. Indexability

 

Indexability refers to the ability of search engines to include URLs in a catalog of pages that appear on a search results page. A crawlable URL is not necessarily indexable.

Usually, index problems arise when there is duplicate content, redirections, alternate versions of the same page, or similar problems.

 

3. Accessibility

 

Accessibility refers to whether or not the URL can display or render easily. This covers a wide range of important topics:

• Server performance
• Orphan pages
• Website security
• Page depth
• HTTP status
• Load time
• JavaScript

In a technical SEO audit, you should be able to discover what is causing accessibility problems in your links if there are any. A technical SEO specialist can help you make sense of this.

 

4. Rankability

 

Rankability involves boosting your web pages in search ranking. You can do so through linking or semantic optimization.
Linking transfers traffic from more popular pages to less popular pages. Thus, you can improve the importance of some of your pages by using your other pages to boost them.

Semantic optimization refers to the content silos located within your website. Whether it’s a blog, a podcast, or something else, these content silos are great for grouping your content together. This improves the ranking of all of the pages.

 

5. Clickability

 

Clickability refers to the popularity of your web pages. The more people click on your pages, the better.
You can improve clickability by focusing on enriching URL listings and improving site architecture.
When in doubt, focus on the analytics. They’ll let you know what to focus on.

 

 

The Future of Technical SEO

 

Technical SEO is still following Google’s lead. As Google focuses more on mobile, websites are adapting and working to appear better on mobile phones.

Now that you’ve read Technical SEO: A Complete Guide, you’re ready to make the changes necessary to your website. From the architecture of your pages to the enriching content you’re offering, it’s time to buckle down.And, when things get complicated, trust the experts. Explore what we can do for you today.