Technical SEO might sound intimidating, but it's really about making your website easy for Google (and your customers) to use. If you want to rank higher in search results, you need a solid technical foundation—no coding degree required!
What is Technical SEO?
Technical SEO covers all the behind-the-scenes stuff that helps search engines crawl, index, and understand your website. Think of it as the plumbing and wiring of your digital storefront.
Key Technical SEO Basics
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Your site must look and work great on phones and tablets. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so if your mobile site is bad, your rankings will suffer.
- Fast Loading Speed: Slow sites lose visitors and rankings. Compress images, use modern hosting, and minimize unnecessary scripts.
- Secure (HTTPS): Google gives a ranking boost to secure sites. Make sure your site uses HTTPS, not just HTTP.
- Clean URL Structure: Use short, readable URLs (like /services/local-seo, not /services?id=1234).
- XML Sitemap: This is a roadmap for search engines. Most website platforms generate one automatically, but you can check yours at /sitemap.xml.
- Robots.txt: This file tells search engines what to crawl (and what to ignore). Don't accidentally block important pages!
- Structured Data: Add schema markup to help Google understand your business, services, and reviews. This can improve your appearance in search results.
Common Technical SEO Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
- Broken links (404 errors): Regularly check for and fix broken pages.
- Duplicate content: Make sure each page is unique and use canonical tags if needed.
- Missing meta tags: Every page should have a unique title and meta description.
- Large images: Compress images before uploading to keep your site fast.
- Not using alt text: Add descriptive alt text to all images for accessibility and SEO.
How to Check Your Technical SEO
- Use free tools like Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and PageSpeed Insights.
- Set up Google Search Console to monitor indexing, errors, and performance.
- Check your site's sitemap and robots.txt files.
Why Technical SEO Matters for Local Businesses
If your site is slow, broken, or hard to use, customers will leave—and Google will notice. A technically sound website helps you rank higher, get more traffic, and convert more visitors into leads.
Need help? Our local SEO experts can audit your site and fix technical issues so you can focus on running your business.
Bottom line: Technical SEO is the foundation of your online presence. Get it right, and everything else gets easier!
