by Technical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be challenging for marketers. Despite its many terms and standards, the technical side of SEO can seem overly complicated and mysterious for beginner SEOs. To rank number one in search results, however, you cannot ignore technical SEO checklist.
This is why it’s so important to have a checklist for technical SEO in 2022, which lowers the difficulty level.
By using this resource, your company can check technical SEO off your list and move up the search engine result pages (SERPs).
RB Sojib can help if you’re not fully confident in your company’s ability to handle technical SEO.
7 Effective Technical SEO Checklist for your website to get high rank on Google
1. Do You Have a Mobile-Friendly Website?
♠ The website must be mobile-friendly (or responsive).
Search engines like Google now index mobile-first pages because more than half of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices. They thus view mobile-friendly sites differently from desktop-friendly ones, affecting search engine rankings.
What should I do if my site isn’t mobile-friendly?
Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool can help you determine whether your website is mobile-friendly.
Click “Test URL” to check out your results by entering your page’s URL or HTML code.
What is the best way to make my site mobile-friendly?
There’s a possibility that your website isn’t mobile-friendly, depending on its design.
You can fix the error by going to Google and telling them why the page isn’t mobile-friendly. However, if there is an issue with responsiveness, you will almost certainly need to deal with a developer.
You should prioritize this task, nevertheless, since it will impact your rankings.
2. Do you have broken links on your website?
Technical SEO checklists should also include broken links, also called 404s. Broken links hurt the user experience on your website and your search engine rankings, whether there are a few or hundreds.
How can I find broken links on my website?
Your website can be checked for 404s in a couple of ways, including:
- Checking broken links page-by-page with a browser plugin, such as SEO Minion.
- Check your entire site for broken links by downloading freemium software, such as Screaming Frog.
- You can monitor your website by installing a WordPress plugin, such as Broken Link Checker.
Utilize a tool like Screaming Frog, which analyses your whole website in the least amount of time.
SEO Minion is an excellent tool for publishing a new page to your site, but it takes time to audit your entire website.
What can I do about broken links on my website?
Broken links are likely to occur on most websites. There are various causes of 404 errors, from typos to deleted pages.
Whether you work with a developer or independently, you’ll want to take the time to rectify or remove these links.
You should check each link and afterward fix it to make sure it works.
3. Do you have a secure HTTPS site?
Google uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) as a ranking signal and mobile-friendliness and responsiveness. However, you can lose rankings, traffic, and even sales if you use HTTP, the unsecured HTTPS version.
What are the types of HTTPS on my website?
You can quickly determine whether your website uses HTTPS. First, check the address bar in your browser when you visit the site.
Your domain name should begin with “https://” or “http://.”
The address bar on your website shows “http://” rather than “https://.” If this is the case, your website isn’t using HTTPS. It is essential to get this off your technical SEO checklist as soon as possible.
How can I fix my site if it doesn’t use HTTPS?
You have to switch to HTTPS as soon as possible.
Follow these steps to transition your website to HTTPS:
- First, buy an SSL certificate for your website.
- The SSL certificate must be installed on your website.
- Next, upgrade your internal links to HTTPS and your canonical URLs to HTTPS.
- Use Google Search Console to verify your site’s HTTP and HTTPS versions.
- Changing your XML sitemap to reflect HTTPS URLs instead of HTTP URLs is recommended.
The system may update your internal links and canonical URLs for you if your company uses a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress. In addition, it will save you time if you check to see if your CMS supports SSL certificates before purchasing and installing one.
4. Do you have duplicate content on your website?
While Google won’t penalize your site for duplicate content, it will have difficulty understanding its value. This is because Google examines your website from the perspective that the URLs, pages, and meta tags on your site are pretty similar.
You should include a meta tag and duplicate content assessment in your technical SEO checklist.
What are the indicators of duplicate content on my site?
There are several ways to check for duplicate content on your website, including using the following tools:
- Screaming Frog
- CopyScape
- Siteliner
To check for duplicate content, meta tags, and canonical URLs, use Screaming Frog. Siteliner can perform a sitewide check, but it has a limit of 250 URLs. Compared to Screaming Frog’s free version, it can crawl up to 500 URLs.
You should pay attention to these reports when using Screaming Frog:
- URL
- Page Titles
- Meta Description
- Canonicals
- H1
- H2
The “Filter” menu allows you to filter your search results. For example, duplicate pages will appear when you click “Duplicate.”.
How can I fix duplicate content on my site?
You have to take your time and be creative to fix duplicate content.
Your team must update the identical meta tags and canonical URLs page-by-page. Therefore, you will need to follow a different procedure if you find duplicate content across your website.
You can combine the content with another page or expand it to make it original by reviewing the content.
Set up a 301 redirect if you merge the pages.
5. How fast is your website?
Websites that are too slow aren’t user-friendly or search engine-friendly. Mobile and desktop users need a fast experience since search engines such as Google use page speed as a ranking factor.
Don’t make your site slow, or you’ll end up in the middle of the pack.
How can I figure out if my site is slow?
Checking your page speed is easy with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Click “Analyze” after entering the URL of the page you want to analyze.
Using Google’s scoring system, you will receive an overall score from 0 to 100. In addition, you can view your desktop speed report, but the default score is based on your mobile page speed.
Google now prioritizes speed for mobile users since the company emphasizes mobile experience now.
What should I do if my site is slow?
Thanks to this part of your technical SEO checklist, you won’t need to search for advice about fixing a slow website.
You and your development team will receive actionable recommendations from Google and specific examples that you can use to improve your website.
Google will probably suggest you make these changes, however, as they include:
- Minifying JavaScript
- Enabling text compression
- Removing unused CSS
- Deferring offscreen images
- Using properly sized images
- Serving images in next-gen formats
- And more
Take a look at this report with your internal or external developers. You may also want to consider working with a dedicated SEO agency, like Best Montreal SEO, if you work with development teams on an as-needed basis.
Technical expertise can help improve page speed and help your business rank higher in search engines.
6. Does your site have redirect chains?
A company may encounter redirect chains for several reasons, such as a redesigned website, a business merger, or the mismanagement of site content. However, it doesn’t matter how you look at it, and a redirect chain won’t improve your search engine ranking.
As a result, spiders will stop crawling your website when a redirect chain (or four or more redirects) is set up.
Having Page A redirect to Page B, which then turns to Page C, which redirects to Page D, constitutes a redirect chain.
Instead of redirecting to Page B, Page A should redirect to Page D.
Where can I check if my site has a redirect chain?
The Screaming Frog website lets you see if a redirect chain exists on your site. You should use Screaming Frog for this task instead of another tool because you can use it for other functions on this technical SEO checklist, such as duplicate content and meta tags.
Follow these steps to access the redirect chain report in Screaming Frog:
- Click “Reports”
- Select “Redirect and Canonical Chains”
- Save your report
After saving your report, you can open it in Microsoft Excel or upload it to Google Sheets. If you’re working with a developer on resolving redirect chains, use Google Sheets.
With Google Sheets, you can make sharing, viewing, and collaborating on the document and project efficient. Plus, you can access it wherever you go.
What should I do if my website has redirect chains?
It’s best to contact a developer if your website has redirect chains. Ensure that the redirecting pages lead to the desired page by modifying the original redirects.
FOR EXAMPLE, Page A will redirect to Page D rather than Page B, Page C, and Page D.
Your redirects should also be double-checked and confirmed as you did for the broken links.
7. Do you have a properly formatted robots.txt file?
The robots.txt file is required for every website for crawlers to avoid indexing sensitive pages. To achieve that, your robots.txt file must use the correct format and be located in the right place.
Do I have a correctly formatted robots.txt file?
You can check your robots.txt file easily by using Google’s robots.txt Tester.
You can use this tool to access and test the robots.txt file on your website for free. The file can also be modified to ensure the new version works, such as by telling a crawler not to index an order confirmation page or PDF resource.
A URL can also be entered and tested with this tool if you want to check it.
What do I do if my robots.txt file isn’t formatted correctly?
Unless your robots.txt file follows Google’s recommendations, it is recommended that you update it to comply with those recommendations. The robots.txt Tester tool can help you complete this technical SEO checklist to-do.
Conclusion
Use an SEO Expert to complete your Technical SEO checklist.
A strong technical SEO strategy is crucial to any SEO effort. By using this technical search engine optimization checklist, you can start optimizing your website for technical SEO.
Your rankings, organic traffic, and bottom line can be significantly improved with these optimizations, from optimizing your page speed to optimizing your mobile SEO.
Our technical SEO agency can assist if you do not have the time to review this checklist and make changes. Having decades of experience, hundreds of happy clients, and billions of dollars in results, we can deliver results for technical SEO and first-page rankings.
