Top 12 Technical SEO Issues & How To Fix Them
Top 12 Technical SEO Issues & How To Fix Them SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to master. By keeping an eye out for common technical SEO issues and taking steps to fix them, you can ensure that your website is optimized for search engines and ready to rank high in SERPs. A technical SEO audit is an important part of any complete SEO strategy. It is a process of assessing the technical health of a website with the goal of identifying areas where the site needs improvement in order to rank better in search engines. The audit will examine various aspects of the site’s architecture, including site structure, URL structure, redirects, sitemaps, and other technical elements. Some of the most common issues that are identified during technical SEO audits include poor website architecture/code structure, thin or duplicate content, broken links, missing or incorrect use of robots.txt, bad redirects, and many more. Here are the 12 most common technical SEO issues: 12 Common Technical SEO Issues 1. Not Having a Mobile-Friendly Site In today’s world, it’s absolutely essential to have a mobile-friendly website. More and more people are using their phones and tablets to browse the internet, and if your site isn’t designed for mobile devices, you’re going to lose out on a lot of traffic. Google has even stated that they now use mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, so if your site isn’t optimized for smaller screens, you could be at a disadvantage in the SERPs. To fix this issue, you’ll need to create a responsive design that automatically adjusts to fit any screen size. If you’re not sure how to do this, you can hire a web designer or use a responsive theme. 2. Poor Site Speed and Performance Another important ranking factor is site speed, which refers to how quickly your website loads. If your site takes too long to load, users will get frustrated and leave, and search engines will penalize you with lower rankings. There are a few different ways to improve your site’s speed, such as optimizing images, using a caching plugin, and minifying code. You can also use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get specific recommendations on how to speed up your site. 3. Lack of HTTPS encryption HTTPS encryption is essential for any website that collects sensitive information from users, such as credit card numbers or personal data. Not only is it a best practice for security, but Google also uses HTTPS as a ranking signal. If your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, you can purchase one from a trusted Certificate Authority. Once you have your certificate, you’ll need to install it on your web server and make sure that all of your pages are being served over HTTPS. 4. Not Optimizing Title Tags and Meta Descriptions Title tags and meta descriptions are two of the most important on-page SEO elements, yet many people neglect to optimize them properly. Your title tag should be unique and descriptive, and your meta description should give users a clear idea of what your page is about. Both of these elements should include your target keyword, but you should also make sure that they’re readable and user-friendly. Stuffing them full of keywords will not only turn off users, but it will also get you penalized by Google. 5. Not Utilizing Header Tags Properly Header tags are used to structure the content on your pages, and they range from H1 (the largest) to H6 (the smallest). Your H1 tag should be reserved for your page’s title, and the rest of your header tags should be used to break up your content into sections. Not only do header tags make your content easier to read, but they also give search engines an idea of its hierarchy and structure. Be sure to use them judiciously, though, as too many header tags can make your content look spammy. Technical SEO Site Audit Get a complimentary SEO site analysis Click Here To Get A Free Site Analysis Done For You 6. Not Optimizing Images Images are an important part of any website so you should always optimize your images before uploading them to your site. There are a few different ways to optimize images, such as reducing their file size, using descriptive filenames, and adding alt text. Images can be a major contributor to slow loading times. To avoid the issue of slow image loading time, you should always make sure your images are compressed before uploading them to the site. You can use an image optimization plugin like WP Smush to automatically compress all of the images on your site. You can also use a CDN to serve your images from multiple locations around the world, which can help improve loading times for users in far-flung areas. 7. Site Isn’t Indexed Correctly If your site isn’t indexed correctly, then it’s not going to show up in the SERPs at all. This is a common issue that can be caused by a number of different factors, such as duplicate content, robot.txt blocking, or a lack of sitemaps. Flash and iFrames are two technologies that were once popular but are now outdated and no longer supported by most browsers. They’re also not indexable by search engines. To fix this issue, you’ll need to make sure that your site is crawlable and that there are no duplicate pages being indexed. If you’re still using Flash or iFrames on your website, you need to remove them as soon as possible. You can also submit your sitemap to Google through Search Console to ensure that all of your pages are being indexed properly. 8. Not Using Schema Markup Schema markup is a code that you can add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. It’s especially useful for businesses, as it can help your listings stand out in the SERPs with rich snippets. Adding schema markup to your site is relatively simple,