Technical SEO - Episode 7 SEO Espresso, The Podcast
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to SEO Espresso, the podcast with
[00:00:03] me, your host, Natalie of Natalie Faith Web Designs. This podcast is your short and fast hit to learning SEO dedicated to breaking down the complexity of SEO so you can create a memorable online brand that attracts clicks, leads, and sales to your website. Learn SEO in easy to consume shots of knowledge that will allow your business to grow all while sipping your morning coffee. If this is what you've been looking for to get your business noticed in more places than just social media, you are in the right place. You're gonna love what comes next. Let's go.
[00:00:37]
[00:00:44] technical SEO, as the name alludes this criteria can be a little bit more technical. This is the more complicated SEO elements and may require an expert to action. Technical SEO is to ensure everyone using your website is [00:01:00] safe online and that they have an enjoyable experience.
[00:01:03] So the way we can do this is by making sure your site maps are linked to Google search console, and therefore it'll let us know if there are any issues along the line. So how do we do this? Create an account on Google Search Console. Don't worry. I'll add a direct link in the show notes below. Scroll down.
[00:01:20] And on the left panel you'll see a few headings. One that says indexing in this section is pages, site maps and removals. And we want to click on site maps. Within the add anew site map area, will be your website URL, and then type the following sitemap_ index xml, and then hit submit once complete. This will let Google crawl your website and add it to search engines, but it will also audit your website for any technical SEO tasks, not just once but continuously. So you'll be seeing those notifications come through your inbox quite regularly. Here's the technical [00:02:00] SEO checklist of critical technical SEO elements that Google search engines will most likely be sending you a message about. They are site maps and indexing, crawl errors and robot text files, DNS verifications, fixing broken links, optimize image names, site structure, canonical URLs, security verifications.
[00:02:24] Removing duplicate and unused pages. Also schema markup, website speed, and accessibility. So let's jump into each of these. For site maps and indexing, this is when you have a new web page that you want to be found on Google. So you submit your site map or that particular URL, and then you'll start being found in search results.
[00:02:47] Fix crawl errors and robot text files, so Google Search Console will notify you if there are any issues once you've submitted your site map or URL if any robots are unable to crawl it. Usually this could [00:03:00] be that the page is set to private within your website settings or is in some way set to block robot crawlers resulting in that page not being found in search results.
[00:03:10] Robot text files can provide robots with a clear set of instructions so they know exactly where to crawl and where not to.
[00:03:18] DNS verifications. So DNS sounds a little bit scary, but it just stands for domain name servers. And when you're setting up your Google search console account, it will ask you to verify your domain. Who it belongs to so that it can connect those two together. And I can do this in a few ways, but the most popular is by adding a text file to your domain name servers to verify this is your domain that you own. And don't be afraid of adding text files to your domain name servers.
[00:03:50] This cannot break your website connection, I promise. And if you make any errors while uploading your text file, it simply means that your website won't be able [00:04:00] to be verified, and that is it.
[00:04:02] Fixing broken links, so nothing is worse than when you're clicking on a link or menu and you see a 4 0 4 error message. If you've come across any of these on your website, make sure you add a redirect to the URL that does work so no one else experiences this issue.
[00:04:18] Optimize your image names. This is usually the most forgotten and underutilized task on our lists because we are all busy business owners, aren't we?
[00:04:28] And we are trying to add a new image or text to our website, but we don't always have the time to stop and add the proper labels to the image, to the alt text or to the image descriptions, but we must, or at the very least, add a reminder and go back later to add this information
[00:04:46] Site structure.
[00:04:47] This is about user experience, intuitive design, and how easy it is for your client or customer to get from one page to the next. Great site structure of a website allows your audience to click [00:05:00] buttons, links, and menu items with ease and find the items they want to read or learn from you. The website is built in a hierarchical format, so crawlers are able to understand the content and so can screen readers.
[00:05:15] Canonical URLs, and this is actually a very important element just to identify with Google which page is the most important. So this shows search engines, the level of importance a page or post has, and which page or post is the one that robots need to be crawling. Sometimes, in particular with product pages, they can become duplicated by the apps or plugins that want to track the data. We need to make sure that Google knows which pages are the pages we created and which have been duplicated by this particular app or plugin just to gather the data that we need for our marketing.
[00:05:53] You can do this by ensuring the original page is indexed properly.
[00:05:57] Security verifications and [00:06:00] SSLs. This is super important if you want your website to be viewed correctly. Google does this thing where it adds a security level over your website if you do not have a SSL certificate. And then it asks all of your audience, are you sure you want to visit this website? It's a bit risky.
[00:06:17] It doesn't have the security around it, and so it can come across as a really bad customer experience. So I'll just suggest that the first thing that you do before your website goes live is install an SSL certificate. You can get these free through your website host, or if you're using WordPress, you can install a plugin. And the one I recommend is called Really Simple Security. And as soon as you've activated that plugin, it'll start working for you. It's free and you can activate it asap, Okay. we need to remove any duplicate or unused pages.
[00:06:54] Every element on your website from images to pages, take up space on your website's host server, and [00:07:00] when it starts to get full, your website will begin to slow down and sometimes not load at all. I have seen some websites absolutely grind to a halt. Or you'll see it slowly load each element and it's terrifying to look at. So what we need to do is to do a regular audit of our website to make sure that that all the pages, posts, and media are still relevant to the website we want to show everyone online. If there are any duplicate pages from a recent import or there are any old images from a previous design that you no longer need, we need to remove all of this Another important factor to review if there are any live duplicate pages. This might be confusing, search engines and your customers. If these pages are using the same keyword, they will be competing with each other in search engines, and Google will eventually push these down in search results because it's not sure which page to refer people to.
[00:07:59] And there's [00:08:00] probably content online that doesn't have this competitiveness so it will end up pushing you down and someone else further up. Some other technical SEO areas that you need to take note of are things like schema markup. This is particularly great if you have a recipe blog, if you have step-by-step instructions on your website or if you have a FAQ page. All this information can be populated in search results and then attract people back to your website to learn and read more. if you are thinking, I dunno what you're talking about, please go to a search engine right now.
[00:08:32] Type in your favorite recipe and then you'll see that the recipe is in search results. This is schema markup. So this is originally founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex, and is now a community base and is found schema.org and is edited by volunteers who have an interest in improving search results and how information is displayed.
[00:08:55] This can be actioned by adding code or a plugin to your website, and it's [00:09:00] something just to keep in mind because it does create a really nice experience for your customers in search results.
[00:09:06] Website speed.
[00:09:08] I want you to go over to pagespeed dot web dot dev and enter your website's URL. Once you've hit analyze, it will show you what potentially could be slowing down your website. And majority of the time it's usually some large media files like images that are too big in dimension or file size. Maybe you a lot of videos on your website, or it could be JavaScript code, which is usually from things like popups, social media feeds, or any sort of like moving visual elements on your website, the more fancier website looks, it can actually be really quite slow moving. So if you have any unnecessary elements on your website, that might be slowing it down. Consider just deactivating them for the moment and seeing if that makes a difference with your website speed.
[00:09:58] Accessibility [00:10:00] audit your website's Accessibility by using the Wave website, which can be found. Wave dot W and then entering in your URL here as well. This pinpoints every accessibility issue you have on your website, but it also is very instructive of what to do So if you've ever considered making some updates to your website and aren't sure where to start, this is a really powerful tool and one that I use all the time for my own website because it really highlights the exact issues that you need to and edit.
[00:10:34] Now if this is all sounding a little bit complicated, please contact your favorite website or SEO expert to assist you in actioning any of these tasks.
[00:10:43] I find that overwhelm is what stops us from progressing in our big goals or marketing strategies, so please don't stop here. Continue updating your website and gaining more SEO. If you've enjoyed today's episode and know someone who wants to learn some more SEO, please share [00:11:00] this episode with a friend.
[00:11:01] Until next time, see you then. Bye.
[00:11:05] This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation who've cared for this land for over 60,000 years. I pay respect to their elders, past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
