5 Aspects of Technical SEO You Should Know

Search engine optimization (SEO) proceeds to evolve, and the past years can be seen as proof. In addition to the ever-present Google updates, social influence and artificial intelligence, Google is constantly expanding search.

And yes, SEO can be complex, but some of the core philosophies when it comes to the technical aspect haven’t been changed much over the years. 

Everything is important, and from the well-known saying “content is king,” there’s no doubt that engaging content should always be a priority. Moreover, the optimization for mobile search and local search shouldn’t be left behind. Nowadays, online reviews and social media also play a crucial role. 

Over the years, all updates have just reinforced what Google has been emphasizing all along: Improving the user experience for people that are looking for information online. 

Keep reading to learn more about the technical aspects of SEO.

What is On-Page Optimization?

On-page optimization includes everything you should do when creating your website and online presence. These tactics can be implemented after your website has been established, so no advanced knowledge of website development is required.

So, why are some of these techniques neglected by those who are trying to improve their ranking on search engines?

Because most of them aren’t informed about the powerful SEO techniques. 

In this blog post, we’ll cover 5 technical aspects that form part of on-page optimization. This can build the foundation for your SEO and is pretty easy to understand.

Technical Search Engine Optimization 

What helps a website to rank better on the search engine results pages (SERPs) are the technical aspects that form part of technical SEO. These tweaks make a website crawlable, and most importantly, understandable for the search engines.

Now, let’s start with the good news, which you probably already know: Search engines are still the prevailing resource for finding and showing information on the web. So, focusing your efforts on improving the organic search for your website can pay off for you in the long run. 

Whether you’re a beginner when it comes to SEO, or you are continuously learning the most effective approaches to dominate Google, having knowledge of basic SEO techniques is important. Moreover, an understanding of the latest algorithm changes puts you ahead of most of those just trying to “optimize” their website.

1. Meta Tags

A meta tag is any one of the many labels you give your web page. There are several different meta tags but we’ll only talk about the most common ones.

These meta tags hold the general information of your website and are used to decide how best to treat each page when indexed. They are required because they help search engines understand the name of your website’s pages. 

It’s good practice to make sure that your meta tags are comprehensive, reliable, and up to date. Also, always make sure that each page has its own set of meta tags because duplicate tags will harm your rankings. 

Locating your meta tags can be easy, depending on the content management system you’re using. You can opt for a plugin like Yoast or settle for a page editor that gives direct access to the website’s code.

Meta Title

When discussing meta titles, a general rule is to make sure that your title tag is no more than seven words and has 60 characters at most. This is the maximum number of characters displayed as a Google title. If your title is longer, it may not be shown completely when appearing in Google search results. 

Meta Description

Meta descriptions are the short text snippets displayed in search results below the title. These need to be optimized for both search engines (keyword targeting) and user intent.

These meta descriptions should be around 155-160 characters. Now, with more people searching on their mobile, even 120-130 characters are enough. These descriptions have a lower impact on Google’s rankings, but help with your overall optimization efforts and improving the click-through rate.

Your description should accurately describe what users will read and find out when they click through to your page.

2. The Robots.txt File

When we talk about Robots.txt files, we’re referring to the contents of the website which we want – and don’t want – to be crawled by the search engines. 

These are located in the root directory of websites and are used if you wish to control which parts of your site a search engine spider indexes. You can prevent the spider from indexing certain parts which, for example, may include sensitive and personal account information.

If Googlebot can’t find a robots.txt file, it will proceed to crawl the entire site – that’s why having it improves your site’s crawlability and ranking.

3. Heading Tags

Headings are very important for a page. They allow the reader to skim through the content of the page without reading it, and, if optimized properly, the user can find what they are looking for under the heading.

These headers are basically emphasizing the text on a website, and it’s good practice to include your most important keywords in the h1 and 2 tags accordingly.

4. SSL Certificates

When we click on a website, its address commonly starts with https or http. The first one, https, indicates that the site is secure. 

It’s good to acquire an SSL certificate for your site because Google knows to “check” sites and start penalizing them if they are not deemed secure.  

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and is used to protect delicate information as it travels through the world’s computer networks. This certificate is needed for protecting your website, especially if you are handling sensitive information, like credit cards.

5. Sitemaps

A sitemap gives access to all of the pages on your site or the ones you think are more important. They empower search engines to spider your website much faster and they can help you a lot with your SEO efforts.

When we think of sitemaps, we think of XML sitemaps. These maps are needed so that when a search engine bot crawls your website, it will see the included link to your sitemap. When the search engine crawler reads this sitemap, it will begin indexing the links of your website that you have listed in the sitemap. Sounds great, right? 

And don’t worry – creating an XML sitemap for your website shouldn’t be troublesome at all. Several free programs on the web can help you create an XML sitemap. Once you’re done, all you have to do before having your sitemap uploaded to the Google Search Console feature is to have it uploaded to your server.

Wrapping Things Up

In this blog post, we’ve mentioned the top 5 technical aspects of SEO that you should keep in mind when optimizing your website for search engines. 

When you begin your SEO journey, what’s important is to keep track of your progress and always incorporate new SEO techniques that can help your site. 

If you don’t try to put some of them into practice, your ranking results and website traffic won’t get any better. Our advice would be to read, learn and do!

One thing is for sure – if you keep your long-term goals in mind, you will get to your desired results no matter the new algorithms and obstacles. After all, results from SEO aren’t seen in a day. It takes time, just like practice makes perfect. Good luck!