Effective technical SEO is all about ensuring that your website is equipped with all the technical requirements that modern search engines use to determine rankings. Regardless of how slick your website looks or how compelling the content is, if your SEO isn’t on point—you’re simply not going to rank. It’s a matter of Google and other search engines being able to find, crawl, render and index the pages on your website so that your content can appear in search results. Here are a few things you can do to improve your organic rankings.
Create and optimize your XML sitemap
Sitemaps are what allow Google to find and index your webpages—a critical step in the SEO process. This is a fairly straightforward but essential step. If you’re a WordPress user, you can generate it using free WordPress plugins such as Yoast or Google XML Sitemaps. Then, after you’ve created the sitemap, submit it to Google via Google Search Console.
Keep things up to speed for top technical SEO
Beyond the fact that a slow site will annoy visitors, you’re facing the more significant problem that people might not even be able to find it in the first place. Quality of your site and its content aside, your website will rank lower in SERPs than it would if your website had faster load times.
Check out any of the following free options to test your site speed and see if you’re in the optimal range:
Don’t forget to include keywords in the image alt text
This is a simple yet effective trick. Remember, after all, Google can’t see what’s in an image. So instead, it uses metadata such as the image file name and image alternative text to make assumptions. Alt text is used within an HTML code to explain the role an image plays on a page. Include your focus keyword in the alt text to improve ranking.
Watch out for broken links
You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again—broken links are a total buzzkill for any website. Not only are they problematic from an SEO perspective, but they’re also a huge setback for user experience. How do you feel when you land on a “404 Not Found” page? Luckily, there’s an easy fix to this problem if your site is run on WordPress. Simply install the free Broken Link Checker plugin and fix any issues asap.
Of course, technical SEO is a multilayered process, and most websites can benefit from amendments. Get in touch with one of our experts to discuss how you can improve your site’s technical SEO and boost your organic rankings.
