Technical SEO: 5 Critical Issues That Should Be Addressed Immediately

Search engine optimization stands out as a fundamental component of any successful online strategy. While many marketers focus on the more visible aspects of SEO, such as content creation and link building, the underlying technical framework of a website can significantly impact its visibility and user experience.

Technical SEO is a crucial but often overlooked subset of SEO. It focuses on optimizing the infrastructure of your site to enhance its readability by search engines and improve its ranking in search results.

Addressing technical SEO issues is not just about ticking boxes on a checklist; it's about ensuring that your site can be easily crawled and indexed by search engines, providing a seamless experience for users across devices, and securing your online presence against potential vulnerabilities.

In this article, we will delve into five critical issues of technical SEO that demand immediate attention. More importantly, we will provide actionable insights and solutions to address these issues, ensuring your site not only meets but exceeds the expectations of both search engines and users.

Understanding Technical SEO and the Pivotal Role of Technical Audits

Technical SEO is the backbone of a website’s performance in search engine rankings, focusing on optimizing the site's structure and technology to enhance readability by search engines and improve user experience.

Unlike on-page SEO, which deals with content and keywords, or off-page SEO, which involves external links and social signals, technical SEO addresses the site’s underlying technical aspects. These include:

• site speed,
• mobile usability,
• indexing,
• crawlability,
• security,
• structured data.

By ensuring these elements are optimized, you can significantly boost the visibility of your website and ranking in search engine results pages.

Introduction to Technical Audits

A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive examination of a website’s technical infrastructure as it relates to SEO. It serves as a diagnostic tool that uncovers the strengths and weaknesses of a site's technical SEO setup. It is often the first step in formulating an effective SEO strategy because an audit provides a detailed overview of what's working well and what needs improvement.

Performing a thorough technical SEO audit requires a combination of manual reviews and the use of specialized SEO tools. These tools can automate the process of checking various technical aspects of the site, including but not limited to Google Search Console, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, GTmetrix, and SEMrush. Each tool provides different insights, from page speed analysis to detailed crawl reports, helping to build a comprehensive picture of the site's technical health.

But you might hit some roadblocks. First of all, tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs require a subscription for you to be able to audit your site. Secondly, while the reports you get can be extensive, depending on the service you use, they’re usually shallow. You’ll have to connect the dots on your own, and if you’re not well-versed in SEO, then this task can turn out to be challenging.

So, if you want a comprehensive checkup of the technical aspects of your website, consider investing in professional services. A professional technical SEO auditing service will not only evaluate your website performance but also suggest options for fixing the site’s flaws. And depending on the service you go for, you can also get extra services.

Critical Technical SEO Issues That Should Be Addressed Immediately

Say, you used your trusty SEO tool or went through the Google Search Console and stumbled upon some errors and issues. Which ones are critical and require immediate action?

1. Crawling and Indexing Issues

Crawling and indexing are foundational to SEO. Before a page can rank for relevant queries, it must first be discovered (crawled) and stored (indexed) by search engines. If search engines struggle to crawl and index your site effectively, it can lead to significant visibility issues, impacting your ability to appear in search results.

To solve these problems try to:

• Improve Site Structure: A logical, hierarchical site structure helps search engines and users navigate your site more effectively. Use a clear hierarchy in your URL structure and internal linking to signal the importance and relationship between pages.
• Utilize Robots.txt Wisely: The robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl and which to ignore. Make sure you're not accidentally blocking important pages or resources that search engines need to render your pages correctly. However, be cautious not to allow all pages indiscriminately, as this can lead to crawl budget being wasted on low-value pages.
• Submit a Sitemap: Submitting an XML sitemap via Google Search Console and other search engine webmaster tools helps ensure that search engines are aware of all the pages on your site, especially those that might not be discovered through normal crawling processes.
• Address Technical Errors: Use tools like Google Search Console to identify and fix crawl errors. Common issues include broken links (404 errors), server errors (5xx errors), and incorrect use of directives like noindex or canonical tags that can prevent indexing.
• Use Fetch as Google: Tools like Google's "URL Inspection" tool in Search Console allow you to submit pages for crawling. It can be particularly useful after making significant changes to a page or fixing a crawl issue to ensure that the updated content is indexed promptly.

Addressing crawling and indexing issues is an ongoing process, requiring regular monitoring and adjustments as your site evolves. You might need to run another full technical audit to make sure you’ve tackled this issue.

2. Mobile Usability Deficiencies

Google has adopted mobile-first indexing in 2016. Mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of your website is considered the primary version when evaluating relevance and ranking in search results. Therefore, deficiencies in mobile usability can critically impact your site's visibility and user engagement.

To eliminate the deficiencies, consider:

• Responsive Design: Using a responsive web design means that the style and content will change automatically depending on the size of the device's screen. This lets a lot of different devices—from computers to smartphones—see and use your website.
• Optimizing Page Speed: Mobile users expect fast-loading pages. Use tools like Google's PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix factors slowing down your mobile site. Common solutions include compressing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing code.
• Simplifying Navigation: Mobile screens don't have a lot of room. Make it easy for people to find what they're looking for on your site by making the navigation simple.
• Accessible Touch Targets: Ensure that buttons and links are large enough and spaced apart to be easily tapped on a mobile device. Google recommends a minimum touch target size of 48 pixels.

3. Slow Site Speed

Site speed is a critical factor for both user experience and search engine optimization. Slow-loading websites can lead to higher bounce rates, reduced engagement, lower conversion rates, and, ultimately, a decline in rankings on search engine results pages. In an age where users expect near-instantaneous responses, optimizing your site's speed is essential for success.

To make your website faster, consider these solutions:

• Optimize Images: Large images are among the top reasons for slow page load times. Optimize images by compressing them and using the appropriate file format (e.g., JPEG for photographs, PNG for graphics with transparency) without compromising on quality. Also, consider using modern formats like WebP that offer superior compression and quality characteristics.
• Enable Caching: Implement browser caching so that returning visitors to your site do not have to reload the entire page. This can dramatically reduce load times for repeat visitors.
• Minify and Combine Files: Reduce the size of your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files by minifying them – which involves removing unnecessary formatting, whitespace, and code. Combining files can also reduce the number of requests that a browser makes to the server.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs spread your content across many servers all over the world. This lets users receive files from a server that is closer to them. This could cut load times by a lot.
• Review and Optimize Third-party Scripts: Third-party scripts for tracking, analytics, social media, etc., can significantly impact your site's performance. Review and limit the use of such scripts, and ensure they are loaded asynchronously.

These are just a few of the options you can use. But even these five solutions can yield great results.

4. Security Vulnerabilities

Security vulnerabilities not only pose a risk to your website’s data and your users' privacy but can also have severe implications for your site's SEO and reputation. Search engines, particularly Google, prioritize user security and may penalize sites that are deemed unsafe, affecting their visibility in search results.

• Implement HTTPS: Use HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) across your entire site to encrypt data transmitted between your website and its users. HTTPS is considered a ranking signal by Google, and sites without it may be marked as "not secure" in web browsers, deterring users from visiting.
• Keep Software and Plugins Updated: Ensure all website software, including content management systems, and plugins are up to date. Developers regularly release updates that patch security vulnerabilities.
• Use a Web Application Firewall (WAF): A WAF can protect your website by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It helps defend against SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other common threats.
• Implement Security Headers: Security headers can add a layer of protection by helping to mitigate attacks and security vulnerabilities. Examples include Content Security Policy (CSP), X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and Strict-Transport-Security headers.

5. Improper Use of Structured Data

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. When used correctly, structured data enhances your site's search visibility through rich snippets, Knowledge Graph entries, and other search enhancements.

However, improper use of structured data can lead to misunderstandings by search engines, potentially resulting in penalties and a loss of search visibility. Incorrectly implemented structured data can also lead to misleading or inaccurate search results, harming your site's credibility and user trust.

If you’re having trouble with structured data on your site, follow these recommendations:

• Follow Search Engine Guidelines: Each search engine provides guidelines for structured data. Review and adhere to these guidelines meticulously to ensure compliance. Google's Search Gallery and Schema.org are excellent resources.
• Use Correct Schema Types: Choose the most appropriate schema type for your content. Schema.org offers a wide range of types, from articles and products to events and recipes. Using the most specific type available helps search engines understand and accurately represent your content.
• Validate Your Structured Data: Use tools like Google’s Rich Results Test to validate your structured data. These tools can identify errors or issues in your markup that could affect how your pages are understood and displayed in search results.
• Ensure Visibility of Marked-Up Content: All content marked up with structured data must be visible to users. Avoid marking up content that is hidden or not directly relevant to the page’s main content.
• Keep Your Structured Data Updated: Regularly review and update your structured data to reflect any changes in your content or the structured data guidelines. Outdated or incorrect data can mislead users and search engines.
• Implement Structured Data Using JSON-LD: JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is recommended by Google for structuring data. It’s easier to add and maintain compared to other methods like Microdata or RDFa, and it can be inserted directly into the HTML of a page.

Use Google Search Console’s “Enhancements” reports to monitor the performance and visibility of your pages with structured data. These reports can help identify issues that could have been missed.

In Conclusion

Technical SEO is a crucial aspect of your overall digital marketing strategy that demands attention, expertise, and ongoing effort. By understanding and addressing the critical issues discussed in this article, you can not only avoid the pitfalls that undermine many websites but also unlock new levels of success in the ever-competitive online arena. In the world of SEO, those who are diligent, proactive, and user-focused are the ones who stand the best chance of achieving sustained visibility and success.