Technical SEO is the backbone of your website's performance and visibility. Getting it right ensures your site is accessible, indexable, and ranks well in search engines. Let's dive into the core fundamentals you need to master.
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website's infrastructure to make it easier for search engines to crawl, interpret, and index your pages. Unlike content and link-related SEO, technical SEO focuses on the backend elements that improve a site's accessibility and performance.
Ensuring Crawlability
Crawlability is crucial as it allows search engines to access your website's content. If your site isn't crawlable, your pages won't appear in search results, no matter how great your content is.
Here are some essential steps to ensure your site is crawlable:
- Create and submit a sitemap in XML format to search engines.
- Check and update your robots.txt file to ensure it allows access to necessary pages.
- Use internal linking to help search engines discover new content.
Boosting Indexability
Once your site is crawlable, the next step is ensuring that it's indexable. Indexability refers to search engines' ability to analyze and include your pages in their index.
To enhance indexability, check for any erroneous 'noindex' tags that may prevent pages from being indexed. Use canonical tags to indicate preferred versions of similar content and avoid duplicate content issues.
Pro Tip: Regularly audit your website using tools like WebAuditMax to identify and fix any indexing issues.