What Is Technical SEO? Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started

What Is Technical SEO?

The strategies involved in designing and optimising a website so that search engines can easily crawl, index, and render it are known as technical search engine optimization (SEO). Technical SEO is only one aspect of the whole SEO strategy.

Most marketers and business owners use technical SEO to improve the odds of their website ranking well in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why Is Technical SEO Important?

You can have the best content and the best website. But what if your technical SEO isn’t working? Then you will not be ranked.

Google and other search engines must be able to find, crawl, render, and index the pages on your website at the most basic level.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Even if Google indexes all of your site’s content, your work isn’t finished.

That’s because, in order for your site to be fully optimised for technical SEO, its pages must be safe, mobile-friendly, duplicate-content-free, and fast-loading… There are a million additional factors that go into technical optimization.

That isn’t to argue that your technical SEO must be flawless in order to rank. It isn’t the case.

Example of Technical SEO? 

Building structured data is an example of technical SEO. Structured data is the act of defining your website in a language that search engines can understand. We’ll go over this in more detail later. Schema markup is the most well-known sort of structured data vocabulary.

The majority of major search engines rely on an uniform website structure. This structure must be well-organized in order for search engines to provide the most relevant and detailed results to users. As a result, structured data is a good example of technical SEO.

Setting Up Your Website

Setting up your website correctly so that each page operates as it should is the first big step in developing a technical SEO plan.

Let’s go through some SEO fundamentals and the first stages to building a website from the ground up:

1. Purchase a domain name: There are a plethora of domain registrars (companies that organise and handle available and taken domain names) to choose from. Some of the most well-known registrars include Wix, GoDaddy, and Domain.com.

2. Connect your domain name to an IP address by using the following steps: IP addresses are a set of digits that allow the internet to translate a domain name like “semrush.com” into something that can be catalogued and organised. A domain name server (DNS) organises these IP addresses into a complex map that may be found all over the internet.

Once you’ve mastered those two elements, you’ll need to start preparing your site to appear in search engine results pages. This can happen in a number of ways:

a) A someone looks for your website (for example, if they want to learn more about SEO, they type “semrush.com” into the search box of their Chrome browser).

b) Their browser will call the DNS server to translate a domain name to an IP address. It will also begin demanding information about the type of programming/coding used on your website.

c) When the DNS receives the request, it begins constructing the website files that will be shown in the user’s browser.

d) The big show is about to start — rendering. The browser will begin constructing the web page requested now that the DNS has supplied the correct materials to it. “Rendering” is the term for this process. It allows ordinary consumers to see the polished website without having to wade through a mountain of code.

e) Any unfulfilled code requests are sent to the server as a last check by the browser.

f) Your webpage is successfully displayed in the browser.

And that, in a nutshell, is how a website progresses from conception to browser-ready status.

Structure of a URL

The look of a URL is described by the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) structure. Both search engines and users benefit from this structure since it provides crucial information about the web page. You’ve undoubtedly encountered a lot of URLs that begin with “HTTPS.”

This string of letters denotes a URL format that combines the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and the Secure Socket Layer protocols (SSL). The “S” at the end refers to a security protocol used by many websites to keep the contents of a webpage (as well as information entered by users) safe.

This is a blog post about Shopify, as you can see from the text. This is reflected in the URL structure, which includes “/shopify-the-complete-guide.”

The “S” at the end of “HTTPS” and the little lock icon in the left-hand corner of the search bar indicate the presence of an SSL certificate.

HTML, JavaScript, and CSS

HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are undoubtedly terms you’ve come across in technical SEO circles or on the internet. Don’t worry if it feels like you’re studying Latin; HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are all programming languages that anyone can learn with a little patience, practise, and help.

Let’s go over each programming language using the house as an example.

HTML: HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. The foundation and load-bearing walls of a house are analogous to the foundation and load-bearing walls of a house. This language gives browsers the structure (code) they need to show your website’s content. HTML is what you see on a website when you view textual information, such as headers and listicles.

JavaScript: JavaScript is analogous to the plumbing and electrical systems in a home. When searchers come to a site, JavaScript delivers the code that makes the functional aspects of the site usable. JavaScript allows webpage elements to be dynamic and dazzling. With JavaScript, the possibilities are practically limitless. For instance, if you wanted to make a click-through quiz on one of your web sites, you might use JavaScript to accomplish so.

CSS: In this instance, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the house’s exterior. Colors, fonts, and the general appearance of your site are all controlled by this programming. On a website, everything would look incredibly blank and dull without it.

Crawling, Indexing, and Rendering

So, what happens once you’ve connected your website to an IP address and added your HTML, JavaScript, and CSS programming to the mix? You’ll want to pay close attention to what Google does when crawling, indexing, and displaying your website to guarantee that it appears in the SERPs.

The more you understand each of these phases, the better your technical SEO approach will be able to suit the needs of both people and search engines. The more you fulfil search engines’ needs, the higher your chances of ranking well in the SERPs.

Crawling

Do you go to a website you like and browse numerous pages and use the breadcrumb navigation to see everything it has to offer? If you know how Google’s crawlers (bots) navigate public websites, you’re in good shape.

When these Google bots start scanning the web, they go to public websites and click on links just like a human would.

Indexing

Indexing functions similarly to Google’s filing cabinet. When the Googlebot crawls a public site, it saves the content and indexes it, making that page appear in the relevant search engine results that best match a searcher’s query.

Utilizing a free Google tool called Google Search Console is one approach to confirm that Google has appropriately scanned and indexed your content.

After you sign up for a free account, you may do things like track when a new webpage you made is indexed. You can also provide sitemaps, which make it easier for Google to recognise and catalogue the material on your site.

It’s critical to create a sitemap since it makes Google’s (and your) job much easier. Rather than exploring your website aimlessly, you can tell Google where the relevant material is and how frequently you update it.

Rendering

When Google has finished crawling and indexing your website’s content into its filing cabinet, it renders it. If everything goes well and your content appears in the SERPs, Google wants to make sure that people see and interact with it the way you intended.

Websites did not have JavaScript in the early days of the internet. Because they were written in HTML, a highly static programming language, they were incredibly simple to render. Google’s work has become a lot more difficult with JavaScript and colourful CSS.

Page Speed

Website pages were more easier for search engines to render in the early days of the internet. The programming was simple, and the site’s elements were minimal.

So many more things are now feasible for web developers thanks to JavaScript and CSS. Page speed is becoming a more important component in user experience as web content grows more rich and dynamic (and in how well your content ranks in the SERPs).

The more JavaScript you have on your site (especially complicated parts), the more difficult it is to load that page. Because page speed is a ranking issue, you should keep track of how long it takes for content to load when a user requests it.

User-Friendly Sites 

User-friendly websites are those that prioritise the user’s experience. This does not imply that you ignore or disdain what search engines want; rather, it implies that you recognise that people come first (a sentiment shared by Google!).

There are various approaches to creating a user-friendly website, and we’ll go over a couple of them next.

Mobile-First Indexing 

Mobile-first indexing, as the name implies, is when search engines (and thus web developers) prioritise indexing mobile versions of websites.

This means you should think about putting a lot of emphasis on your mobile site’s experience and structure.

If you go to the Google Search Console and look at the recent crawl log for a recently added page to your site, you can see if your site is using mobile-first indexing.

You’re good to go if you notice “Googlebot smartphone” crawling your page first. Your site may have already been moved over, as indicated by a pop-up.

AMP

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a form of open-source HTML framework developed by Google to assist web developers in making web content mobile-friendly.

If you haven’t already, you should think about using this type of coding to put mobile user experience first. In the previous decade, mobile internet browsing has exploded, with mobile devices accounting for more than half of all web traffic.

As a result, you must create web content that can be accessed from a mobile device or tablet. These types of pages might already exist on your website.

Google is almost probably giving individuals who use this framework to produce their online content a higher rating. Because Google realises that the majority of consumers will access your site via a mobile device, you should prioritise their type of experience.

Other advantages of using the open-source HTML framework known as AMP to create web content include:

• AMP loads in a fraction of a second.
• Much easier to construct than other frameworks.
• AMP is supported by a slew of key platforms.
• CSS can still be used with AMP (but the code will be less complex).
• The foundational elements of AMP are already in place; all you have to do now is expand on them.

Canonical Tags

You’ve probably heard of canonical tags, and you’ve probably seen them referred to as rel=”canonical.” Canonical tags are indicators that tell search engines that the URL you supplied is the original and true copy of a page, if you’re not familiar with the phrase.

The <head></head> part of a page’s HTML code contains canonical tags. They may self-refer to a page’s URL or aggregate signals by referring another page’s URL.

Conclusion

Technical SEO isn’t something you can learn in a day or two; it takes a lot of time and effort, as well as some trial and error

There is some good news, though: you don’t have to go it alone. Semrush Academy provides free training and certificates in a variety of SEO topics, including technical SEO.

You may begin working on the technical part of SEO right now, risk-free.