SEO is made up of two key components: on-page, and technical. On-page SEO is the more common one to hear about, involving optimising your content for quality and accuracy to user searches to ensure you turn up when they come looking. Technical SEO, on the other hand, is the techniques used to improve your pages and website as a whole in the eyes of modern search engines through the code base of the website.
At Squarebird, we provide the full package for SEO support, meaning you get both these features in a single bundle. Today, we’ll focus on technical SEO – what it is, why it’s important, and how to use it to improve your site’s ranking and organic growth.
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What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is made up of the processes and practices involved in optimising your website and pages for search engines. Rather than the content itself, technical SEO focuses more on the meta aspects, such as image sizes, site structure, code base, and of course meta data. Key components include:
- Crawling
- Indexing
- Rendering
- Website architecture
In practice, technical SEO involves observing trends with what users and Google look for in a quality website. Things like mobile friendliness, fast loading times, and UX engineering all feed into these processes, helping to improve the effectiveness of your site and marketing.
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The role of web development in SEO
Alongside technical SEO experts, some knowledge of web development can also be helpful in ensuring the success of technical SEO elements. Things like user behaviour monitors can take skill to implement, and markups like Schema or files like your robots.txt require some technical understanding.
Likewise, the actions that are required as the result of technical SEO reporting may require a dev (or even a designer) in order to action, as website changes tend to involve a lot of complex work.
As a full stack digital agency, Squarebird offers designers, devs, SEOs, and more. Get in touch today to get started.
The impact of technical SEO
Better site speeds. Reducing image sizes, centralising content, and improving your site architecture can all lead to better site speeds. This reduces bounce rates from frustrated customers, increases accessibility for lower-end devices and mobile (which makes up over 70% of all website visits), and means customers can more easily navigate your site – leading to better conversions.
Search engine understanding. Things like your robots.txt and meta data can help boost the understanding of your website, both when it’s crawled by a search engine and when users see your site in search results, making it easier to get your business in front of the customers you want – and the ones that are looking for you.
Improved organic performance. All of these factors lead to a quality site that both Google and its users will want to visit. Having a low bounce rate shows you’re reputable, having a well-structured site ensures you’ll be matched with the right searches, and having a smooth user experience will boost conversions. Together, these lead to an increase in both the organic traffic you receive, and the success of your website as a whole.
Crawling a website to analyse technical SEO
Analysing a website’s technical SEO starts with a web crawl, often using a third-party device such as Screaming Frog. The data from this crawled can be analysed and interpreted by SEO experts, providing actionable insights and ensuring your site’s technical SEO is up to scratch.
Things a web crawl can cover include:
- Indexability. The ability for search engines to read content on a page and add it to an index, leading to the site showing up in search results for the relevant keywords.
- Robots.txt. This document allows you to determine which pages should be crawled and which ones shouldn’t. Your robots.txt file is vital for preventing certain site elements like user profiles from being crawled and displayed on the web.
- Canonical tags. These are bits of HTML code that determines which of a number of similar pages should be the one to appear in search results, preventing keyword cannibalisation and improving the discoverability of your site.
- XML sitemap. A hierarchical structure of your website, containing the URLs of all relevant pages, which is used by web crawlers in order to understand and navigate your website’s structure.
- Redirects, interlinking, and information architecture. These elements basically amount to ensuring each link on your site takes users somewhere they want to go, and that the relevant links are readily available to navigate around your site with ease.
- Core Web Vitals. These metrics measure loading performance, interactivity and visual stability, helping you to monitor (via Google Search Console) and improve your site’s performance.
Learn more about our technical SEO audits >
How to create captivating meta data
One crucial feature of technical SEO that’s often overlooked is meta data. This data isn’t directly visible on your website, but can instead be found in things like tab titles and search results, making it a vital part of getting users onto your site in the first place.
Creating captivating meta data can seem daunting, especially given the restrictions on length that are involved. Here are some tips to get you started:
Meta titles
Meta titles are the page title you’ll see in search results. The ideal length varies depending on factors like screen size and character width, but the maximum length for your meta titles should be around 65 characters.
The main thing to focus on with meta titles is accurately conveying the details of the page. You want to do this as succinctly as possible, starting with the most important information (such as the service name). Less important is your business name, as Google will include it as part of the search result anyway, freeing up more space for impactful and descriptive language in the title.
Meta descriptions
The description is where you get the user interested in your page. The title has already shown them that your page will answer the question, and now’s your chance to get them invested enough to click through.
Provide a brief intro as to what will be found on the page, trying not to repeat words or information found in the title. This isn’t a call to action, but an alluring advertisement as to the value your page provides.
The ideal length for a meta description is 156 characters, and you should never go over 160 characters or you run the risk of your description being cut off or replaced in search results.
Featured images
Adding a featured image to your page can also be a useful meta element for search results. Although it won’t always show up, sometimes websites, blogs, and pages can be displayed alongside a pre-designated image in search results. The global rules and outlines for this are from Open Graph, which is a service provided by Meta (a name which is not at all confusing given the existence of the unrelated meta information).
Choosing something bespoke and impactful will have the best effect, adding another splash of intrigue to your already enticing meta information. Even if you don’t have something unique to you on hand, stock imagery can provide a viable alternative, improving the look of your page both on-site and in search results.
Top tip: Images file sizes should be kept as small as possible, and ideally uploaded in .jpg or .webp format. Different formats may result in loss of quality, and larger images can slow down your site, so this is a good compromise that offers the best of both worlds.
Alt captions
Alt captions are the descriptions of images that let visitors know what’s there without needing to see the image itself. The two main demographics this is helpful for are those with poor connections where the images won’t load, and those with accessibility requirements (such as using a screen reader).
The important thing to note for alt captions is to only use them when the image is informative and vital to the understanding of a page. If it’s simply a design element used to capture attention, it’s best not to include an alt caption as this could detract from the value of the information on the page itself.
Enhance your technical and on-page SEO with Squarebird
Technical SEO helps you to optimise your website, ensuring it can be easily found, understood, and navigated by search engines and potential customers. It protects user data, enhances load times, increases your organic traffic, and boosts your conversions. As such, getting technical SEO right is one of the most crucial aspects of your digital presence.
At Squarebird, our SEO experts provide a clear and comprehensive process for crawling, monitoring, and improving the technical SEO of your website. In combination with our on-page SEO and content support, we help businesses like yours to achieve their full potential in the competitive digital marketplace of today. Find out more and begin your evolution by getting in touch.
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