In 2016, the value of technical SEO went on quite a roller
coaster. It was described both as makeup and being dead. However, there were great examples of
technical SEO brought to light that proved it has value and still warrants
paying attention to.
Why did people differ on the value of technical SEO anyways? Some
people think that the problem lies within the definition of it. Various definitions contribute to different
thought processes and overall meaning assumptions. If, however, we refer to it as: “the
practices implemented on the website and server that are intended to maximize
its usability, indexing, and search engine crawling”, then most people can all
agree that technical SEO is a very important and essential piece to a company’s
SEO success.
In order to start putting the best possible foot forward in your
technical SEO for 2017, follow these essential tips:
1. Check
Your Indexing. In order to do this, you can enter site:domain.com in your
target search engine or SEO crawler to yield a number. The number should be equivalent to the number
of pages on your site less the ones you do not want indexed. You want to make
sure that the gap displayed is not bigger than you thought it would be, or you
will have to review the pages that are disallowed.
2. Keep
Important Resources Crawlable. Use an SEO crawler that will give you a list of
all of the blocked pages on your website.
All of your pages and resources need to be crawlable.
3. Keep
Crawl Budget Optimized. Your crawl budget is basically the number of pages on a
website that search engines can crawl in a specific period of time. Google
Search Console will yield you this information, but the stats will not be
broken down. For a more detailed
version, use a specialized tool such as WebLogExpert.
4. Audit
Internal Links. In order for crawlability to be optimized, the site structure
should be shallow and logical. Having internal linking will help spread your
ranking power. When auditing internal links, check for click depth, broken
links, orphan pages and redirected links.
5. Review
Your Sitemap. It is important to check your sitemap to make sure it is fresh,
clean, and the appropriate size (shorter than 50,000 URLs). Doing these things will enable search engines
to discover your content faster.
6. Test
& Improve Page Speed. Page speed is Google’s ranking signal for 2017. You can test this with Google’s PageSpeed
Insights tool.
Make Sure You’re Mobile Friendly. It is key that your
site is mobile friendly. You can test it
with Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool as well as track your mobile ranki
