Technical SEO

What is technical SEO?

SEO consists of three pillars:

  • Technical: can search engines crawl your site and make sense of it?
  • Relevance: does the page cover the search intent of users? Does it answer people's questions?
  • Authority: is a site trustworthy, and does it have enough links pointing to it?

This section is about technical SEO, and covers the following topics:

Contents

  1. When to Use Meta Robots NoIndex Tags

    When to Use Meta Robots NoIndex Tags

    Even though Google’s bots constantly crawl the internet, that doesn’t mean they have to crawl and index every page on your website.


  2. XML Sitemaps

    XML Sitemaps

    XML sitemaps are a powerful tool in your SEO toolbox. This article explains everything you need to know about sitemaps


  3. Robots.txt file

    Robots.txt file

    Use a robots.txt file to instruct search engine crawlers which pages to crawl, and which to ignore. A small mistake in a robots.txt file can have big effects.


  4. Structured Data

    Structured Data

    Structured Data can greatly improve your visibility and click-through rate in search engines. This article shows you how to use Structured Data.


  5. Head, Heading and Header tags

    Head, Heading and Header tags

    Heading tags are markers used in HTML to help structure your website from an SEO point of view and to help visitors and search engines read your content


  6. What are Breadcrumbs?

    What are Breadcrumbs?

    Breadcrumb greatly enhance the way users find their way around your website by telling them where they are. Breadcrumbs also help your SEO, especially if enhanced with Structured Data.


  7. On-Page SEO Check

    On-Page SEO Check

    Set up your on-page SEO properly and get the results you deserve! Our free on-page SEO checker covers all the basics for you. And if you’re new – read on! I’ll explain how to use the suggestions correctly.


  8. Canonical URLs and SEO

    Canonical URLs and SEO

    Canonical URLs are an essential tool for SEOs to control which pages are indexed and avoid duplicate content. This article explains when and how to use canonicals


  9. Pagination and SEO

    Pagination and SEO

    Pagination is a good way to let visitors and search engines browse your content. This article explains how you can implement pagination in an SEO-friendly way.


  10. What is a 404 Error?

    What is a 404 Error?

    What is a 404 error page? How do you Implement 404 for better user experience? What are the SEO Impacts of a 404 error?


  11. HTTP Status Codes and SEO

    HTTP Status Codes and SEO

    HTTP status code tells a search engine what the result of their request is. That sounds complex, but it's simple and important for SEO.


  12. Broken Links

    Broken Links

    Broken links can hurt the user experience of your site and may negatively affect SEO. This article explains how you find, fix and monitor broken links


  13. Trailing slashes and SEO

    Trailing slashes and SEO

    Trailing slashes, used incorrectly, can damage your SEO activities. This article explains how to make the right set-up and avoid SEO damage.


  14. Website Security and HTTPS

    Website Security and HTTPS

    How does website security relate to SEO, and what do you need to do to make your site more secure and search-engine-friendly?


  15. Viewport Meta Tag

    Viewport Meta Tag

    Viewport is the user’s visible area of a web page. This is the part you can see from your device or monitor.


  16. Redirects and SEO

    Redirects and SEO

    301, 302, 307... It’s time to demystify all the main redirect types in SEO! Learn everything you need to know in our redirect guide.


  17. What is Wildcard redirect?

    What is Wildcard redirect?

    Wildcard redirects allow you to redirect all of the URLs in a folder on your site. Learn how forwarding domains, masking, URL forwarding, and wildcard redirects work.


  18. What Are Favicons?

    What Are Favicons?

    You might not have heard of a favicon (short for favorites icon) before, but it's a little image that appears in the address bar on your browser. A favicon is the tiny icon you see next to the web address on your browser's address bar.


  19. SEO for developers

    SEO for developers

    Have you been asked to improve the SEO of a website, but don’t know where to start? This guide explains the basics of SEO from a technical perspective.


Why should I prioritize Technical SEO?

It's about the laying the foundations

Technical SEO is a broad topic, but allowing Google to crawl and index a site is a big part of it. If a site can't be properly crawled and indexed, all your other SEO activities are useless. You can create the best content, and get as much links as you can, but your site still won't show up in Google. So before anything else, you need to make sure the technical foundations are solid.

There's usually some low hanging fruit

We often see technical SEO reports contain some sort of low hanging fruit: fixes that can be implemented at low cost, with lots of benefits. By finding and fixing some of these issues, you boost your website's visibilitywithout paying a high price.

It's a long-term strategy

Improvements you make to the technical state of your website are long-term improvements. It's unlikely that new hypes come up that require you to make more changes in 2 years. People want a fast website now, and they'll want it in 2 years time from now. So anything you do to make your website faster, keeps paying dividends in the long term. The same holds for crawl optimizations, security, and a proper website structure. Fix it ones, and it'll work for years to come.

Contents

  1. When to Use Meta Robots NoIndex Tags


  2. XML Sitemaps


  3. Robots.txt file


  4. Structured Data


  5. Head, Heading and Header tags


  6. What are Breadcrumbs?


  7. On-Page SEO Check


  8. Canonical URLs and SEO


  9. Pagination and SEO


  10. What is a 404 Error?


  11. HTTP Status Codes and SEO


  12. Broken Links


  13. Trailing slashes and SEO


  14. Website Security and HTTPS


  15. Viewport Meta Tag


  16. Redirects and SEO


  17. What is Wildcard redirect?


  18. What Are Favicons?


  19. SEO for developers