What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO encompasses all the actions aimed at enabling search engines like Google to discover, analyze, and index your website's pages. This includes:
- Web page indexability.
- Site security (SSL and HTTPS).
- Search engine-optimized structure.
- Page load speed to improve user experience.
- Server performance.
- Mobile optimization and management of technical errors.
These technical optimizations directly improve your conversion rate and the quality of your SEO.
Why is technical SEO essential?
If you’re starting an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, begin with technical SEO. Why? Because it’s the foundation, plain and simple. Think of a website like a car: technical SEO is the engine that makes it run. It’s invisible to users, but when something breaks, everything stops. It's usually at those moments that its importance becomes clear.
Technical SEO is the number one priority in optimization. If the technical side isn’t solid, everything else falls apart. Take a simple example: if your site isn’t indexed by search engines or suffers from technical issues, no matter how great your content is, your site will remain invisible.
Of course, elements like quality content, user experience, and authority are also essential for SEO success. But without a strong technical foundation that makes your site functional and visible to search engines, those efforts won’t bear fruit.
In short: a high-performing website always starts with solid technical SEO!
Deciphering search engine algorithms
Google and other search engines rely on powerful technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning to refine their algorithms. Their goal? To organize the web and provide the most relevant results for every query. The challenge is that these criteria are constantly evolving and becoming more complex.
This is where technical SEO becomes a demanding task. A website is never static it evolves over time, just like the ranking rules imposed by Google and other engines. What worked yesterday might not be enough tomorrow.
To keep up with increasingly intelligent algorithms, constant monitoring and regular technical optimization are essential.
On-page SEO vs. technical SEO: what’s the difference?
On-page SEO and technical SEO share a common goal: facilitating indexing and improving the ranking of web pages in search results (SERP). But there is a significant difference: on-page SEO focuses solely on the content of individual pages, while technical SEO touches the entire website.
For example, some key SEO elements can seem difficult to classify. Take meta tags, for instance. They are part of a page’s HTML code but are not visible in the content. If you work on keywords to optimize a title tag, that’s on-page SEO. However, if those tags are missing or misconfigured (too long or too short), that’s a technical issue.
Other tags, like image ALT text, also blur the lines it could almost be called “technical on-page SEO.” But there’s no need to dwell on semantics. The important thing is to ensure all these tags are properly optimized, especially for the pages you want indexed.
To discover the perfect recipe for successful on-page SEO, refer to this article explaining how to write an SEO-optimized article.
Other pillars of SEO
In addition to technical and on-page SEO, there’s another crucial pillar: off-page SEO. This includes all actions taken outside your site to boost its authority and generate more organic traffic. Netlinking, or creating backlinks, is the primary tool for improving your online visibility. However, beware—if Google detects practices that violate its guidelines, like poor-quality links, it can ruin all your SEO efforts. This delicate topic deserves its own dedicated article soon.
Beyond the three traditional pillars (technical, on-page, and off-page), a new factor has emerged in recent years: user experience (UX). Today, Google’s algorithms increasingly consider the quality of the experience provided to visitors. This is known as SXO (Search Experience Optimization), a blend of SEO and UX that enhances the user journey while boosting SEO. A UX audit helps identify actions to maximize conversions on your site. By analyzing user experience, you’ll discover what works, what hinders visitors, and most importantly, how to make their journey smoother and more engaging.
SEO is evolving... so to stay competitive, you now need to juggle four pillars: technical, content, link building, and user experience!
How to Conduct a Technical Audit
Before diving into the exciting world of technical optimization, it’s wise to start with a technical SEO audit. Conducting a technical site audit helps analyze various site components to obtain a detailed diagnosis.
This analysis can be done effortlessly with the right tools.
Best Tools for Conducting a Technical Audit
In-depth technical analysis: your website's health check
Using specialized analysis tools helps provide more accurate results for different aspects of technical SEO. Here are some popular tool suggestions:
Indexing
- Google Search Console
- Screaming Frog
Page load speed
- Google Search Console
- GTmetrix
- Page Speed Insight
- WebPageTest
Duplicate content
Mobile optimization
- Mobile-Friendly test (Google Search Console)
Structured data
- Rich Results test (Google Search Console)
Organic traffic behavior
At Rablab, we regularly use these tools in our optimization strategy. We particularly value Google Search Console, Semrush, and Screaming Frog, as they complement each other well.
Setting priorities before optimization
Technical priorities depend on the state of your site. Focus your efforts on high-impact optimizations revealed during the technical analysis.
Here are some examples of situations considered high priority:
- Technical issues affecting the website's proper functioning
- Indexing problems, such as a missing or misconfigured sitemap
- Slow page load times
- Major security vulnerabilities in the CMS or server
- Website still on HTTP protocol or missing SSL certificate
- Site accessible through multiple versions (with and without 'www' / 'http' and 'https')
- Poor server performance/reliability
- Site not meeting mobile quality standards
- URL structure issues
- Multilingual site with missing or misconfigured hreflang tags
- Large number of error pages
- High volume of broken internal or external links
- Excessive or unnecessary redirects, redirect loops, or chains
- Significant duplicate content
- Numerous orphan pages or pages too deep in the hierarchy (Page depth)
Don’t worry, your technical SEO doesn’t have to be perfect, but critical errors should be addressed first. Delaying major fixes on your site could cost you, so act quickly. The tools mentioned in this article will be incredibly useful for determining optimization priorities.
Creating a Technical SEO Optimization Strategy
Once your technical audit is complete and priorities identified, it’s time to take action. You need to establish a clear technical optimization strategy.
The simplest way to proceed is by using a technical SEO checklist. It helps you track each step, organize your tasks, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
And because we’re nice at Rablab, here’s a breakdown of key technical characteristics for a healthy website:
Structure
- Fully functional website with optimized architecture
- Optimized URL structure, with subfolders to categorize page types (e.g., …/blog/seo/…)
- Minimal to no duplicate content
- Few or no low-content pages (Thin content)
- Page depth of three clicks or fewer
- Properly configured hreflang tags for multilingual sites
Indexability
- No NOINDEX tags on pages meant to be indexed
- Optimized sitemap.xml file
- Properly configured robots.txt file
- Correct canonical URL setup
Security
- Domain accessible only via HTTPS protocol
- Valid SSL certificate
- Regularly updated site components
- Minimal use of CMS plugins
- Automated file and database backups
Page Experience
- Website hosted on a reliable and high-performing server (no 500 errors)
- Fast page load times (under 3 seconds)
- Use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Optimized images and media
- Page size under 3MB
- Core Web Vitals aligned with Google standards: First Input Delay (FID), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
- Optimized server-side caching
- Responsive design for mobile devices (Mobile-friendliness)
- No 404 errors
- Optimized 404 error page design
- No broken internal or external links
- Minimal use of 301 redirects
- No redirect loops or chains
- Structured data (rich snippets) optimized
- Presence of a favicon
On-Page Technical SEO
- Optimized title and meta description tags on each page
- Unique, optimized H1 tag on each page
- Properly optimized H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 tags
- Optimized image ALT text
- Proper use of strong and em tags
- Internal linking structure (internal links)
- External links to authoritative sources
- Properly configured breadcrumbs
Off-Page Technical SEO
- No backlinks pointing to 404 error pages
- Disavowed toxic backlinks using Google Search Console's disavow tool
Analysis Tools
- Google Search Console set up to monitor page indexing status
- Google Analytics installed and configured to track user behavior
- Technical audit tools installed and configured for periodic automated site audit
One-time tasks vs. recurring tasks
In technical SEO, some tasks are one-off while others require regular monitoring.
For example, if your site is still using HTTP, migrating to HTTPS is essential. This improves security and prevents the "Not Secure" warning in the browser’s address bar. Once the migration is done, the issue is permanently resolved.
On the other hand, some tasks are recurring, like checking for 404 error pages or broken internal links. Since site content evolves constantly (with pages being added or removed), these errors can appear regularly. Monthly checks are recommended to maintain a healthy site. The frequency can vary based on site size and activity.
For recurring tasks, automated audits are especially useful. They allow you to detect issues effortlessly and intervene quickly. In short, regular technical optimization is key to a high-performing, well-ranked site!
Setting SMART goals
In digital marketing, an effective way to achieve your objectives is by using SMART goals. This means your goals should be:
- Specific: Target a precise action.
- Measurable: Quantify the results.
- Achievable: Realistic with available resources.
- Relevant: Aligned with your capacities and priorities.
- Time-bound: Defined within a clear timeframe.
For example, you could set a SMART goal to:
- Reduce homepage load time to under 3 seconds within a month.
- Eliminate all 404 errors on key pages within two weeks.
If you have many pages to optimize, start with the most impactful ones. Prioritize those driving traffic, conversions, or serving essential user functions.
If you need assistance with technical optimization strategies, feel free to contact SEO experts like Rablab.
Web developers: your technical SEO allies
You can’t be an expert at everything (although that would be great!). It’s best to delegate tasks to specialists who can quickly and effectively resolve issues. When it comes to technical optimization or errors, web developers are the best fit to find lasting solutions.
Learning to optimize technical SEO
If you want to learn technical SEO, here are three excellent resources that offer complete training:
Conclusion
Now that you understand what technical SEO is and why it’s essential, it’s time to take action. The available tools simplify much of the analysis through automation.
The next step is to develop a structured action plan by addressing the most critical technical issues first. Assign tasks to the right people to ensure efficient and sustainable optimizations.
You can try doing it yourself, but if you want to accelerate progress and achieve faster results, contact organic search experts.
