The content might be the most crucial factor in SEO, but it is the technical techniques which help boost the online visibility of a website.
There are indeed, millions of users in the world wide web; but the number of sites is twice (even thrice) the number of users. It would be difficult for a first-timer to reach the top rankings in relevant search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Although a website contains quality content, it is still not enough to get a substantial number of traffic on their website. All the hard work poured into making quality content will be put into waste without a well-structured website.
Technical SEO can help increase the visitors on a website by enhancing its technicalities. Factors such as loading speed, web design, and links are the things to be considered in Technical SEO. Since Google has been getting smarter in catching websites which use questionable optimization techniques, and suspicious activities to get on top of Google’s rankings, it is essential for websites to be strategically designed in order to avoid getting penalized. Penalties from Google can greatly affect a website because it might lose massive user following.
To understand further about Technical SEO, here are some tips to make a website appealing to Google’s rankings:
Loading Speed
Visitors are most likely to leave a website with a slow loading speed which takes about three seconds before it fully displays its content. One way to hasten a website’s speed is to optimise the images by compressing them. There are various tools like Optimizilla and WP Smush to help remove irrelevant metadata on images to provide more space. It is also best to use vector images in SVG format instead of JPEG or PNG files to easily adjust the scale of an image without compromising its quality. For logos and icons, creating a sprite would be an ideal move because it combines small images like the logos and icons into one image file.
Responsive Web Design
Web developers should find ways in designing and creating a website which is compatible with other devices like smartphones and tablets. This is because the number of people owning such devices is continuously growing. In fact, almost everyone owns a smartphone because of its practical use. It is annoying to browse the internet with websites displaying only a quarter of their pages. Visitors end up looking at enlarged text files and images, making it hard for them to decipher what the website is all about. To resolve this problem, websites should have a responsive web design in order to display half of the page’s content. In this way, it is easier for visitors to navigate and explore a website.
To ensure that a website has effective responsive web design, avoid flash videos and pop-ups. Instead, use HTML5 videos since it can immediately play MP4 video files on most devices. Meanwhile, pop-ups should be removed since mobile users often find it hard to close it on their devices. These pop-ups disrupt a visitor’s web browsing experience. It is bothersome for a visitor to find a new website suddenly popping up on their screen while reading or watching on a particular website that he originally searched and clicked for
Architecture
Google Spiders are the ones who are responsible for checking a website if its content is providing relevant and useful information to users. If they found out that a website passes to Google’s standards on recognizing authority websites, that website will achieve higher rankings on Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). In order to get a good impression from these Google Spiders, websites should silo their content. Siloing works by categorizing a website’s content so that Google Spiders will be able to recognize all its recent post. There is a tendency for these spiders to land only at the homepage, preventing it from exploring other important or major content on a website. So, in order for these Google Spiders to easily navigate through a website, it is best to practice the siloing technique
Links and Redirects
Make sure to move an updated version of the website to a new URL with a 301 redirect to retain its authority. Some web developers make the mistake of moving their website’s new URL using a 302 redirect. This can cause a huge loss of traffic on a website because the search engine will identify a 302 redirect as a temporary link.
Another thing to look out for are 404 errors. Some users make a mistake on writing a website’s link when searching for a specific website. As a result, they end up landing a page which shows “404 error: File not found. If this happens, there is a high chance that the user will leave and opt for another search. To ensure that a website does not lose more visitors because of this error, consider customising the 404 page, and provide links below which redirects to the website’s homepage or to the page in which it contains the most relevant content similar to the user’s search.
These are just some of the “white hat” SEO techniques web owners can make to attract users in visiting their website. To ensure a more effective approach in increasing the chances of a website to land on the first page of Google’s SERPs, it is best to seek a professional from an SEO company in Singapore.
