It’s important to have solid technical SEO (search engine optimization) practices in
place on your website if you want it to rank well with Google and other search
engines. If you want your site to show up at the top of search results, you need to
ensure that it has all the characteristics that Google wants to see.
This Technical SEO Checklist will give you actionable strategies and tactics you can
use today to optimize your website and gain more visibility from search engines.
Best of all, following these tips will allow you to actually improve user experience
and make it easier for people to find your website on Google or other search
engines!
Check Google Core Web Vitals
Google Core Web Vitals is a tool launched by Google to help users keep their sites
and pages up-to-date that is more accessible and easy for search engines to rank on
the targetted keywords.
They’ve added fresh insights into how well your site is functioning on mobile
devices, how fast your site loads (and if it’s quick enough), how secure your
website is, how recently you’ve updated it, and more. While not every search result
may be affected quite yet, it’s a step in finding better results for users—and
doesn’t hurt at all for rankings either!
Use GTmetrix for website technical errors
GTmetrix is an easy-to-use online tool that will scan your website for technical
errors and give you feedback on how well your site performs under stress. It’s one
of several tools in a Webmaster’s toolbox, but it’s our favorite because it
highlights technical problems and helps you correct them quickly. If you’re trying
to build or improve a website, we recommend GTmetrix for its insights into load
times, rendering time, and server response time.
Properly check search console errors
The search console shows both Google-generated errors and your own site-based errors.
While it’s a little tedious, try checking each of these areas every time you make
significant changes to your site. It may take some extra time, but it can pay off
big down the road if you’re chasing rankings for specific keywords in search
results.
Check site broken links and do Proper Redirects
Broken links are a cardinal sin of web development. If there’s one thing that gets
your site flagged as low quality by search engines, it’s broken links and bad
internal linking. To verify that your website is in tip-top shape, you can use tools
like Moz’s Link Inspector or another broken link detector tool of your choice.
Simply search for broken link checkers on any major search engine to find many
options.
A 301 redirect tells search engines that a page has permanently moved, while a 302
redirect is a temporary move. Redirects are an important part of your site
structure, and ignoring them can hurt your site’s ranking. Make sure you check all
redirects at least once per month.
Check proper crawling errors
The crawling problem is a type of query that means an external search engine bot is
having issues with getting access to your content. If it takes more than 24 hours
for these errors to correct themselves, then you may have an improper robots.txt
file that needs modifying.
Migrate site to HTTPS protocol
You may want to consider migrating your site over to HTTPS by installing SSL on your
website. There are a number of benefits that come with migrating to an encrypted
connection, including increased security and privacy as well as improved search
rankings.