Analytics, SEO

Most Common Tech SEO Issues and How to Fix Them

May 29, 2023

Technical SEO improves a website's framework and architecture to improve its exposure to search engines.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential for ensuring the effectiveness and visibility of websites in the modern digital environment. Although SEO has many facets, technical SEO is the cornerstone of successful optimisation. Technical SEO problems can hamper the performance and rankings of even the best-designed websites.

This blog article will examine the most common tech SEO issues and explain how to resolve them thoroughly.

How can I Improve my Technical SEO?

Technical SEO improves a website’s framework and architecture to improve its exposure to search engines. You can enhance your website’s user experience and visibility within search results by fixing technical difficulties.

The following are some essential tactics to improve your technical SEO:

Optimising load speed: Websites that take a long time to load can hurt both user experience and search rankings. Consider using a content delivery network (CDN), minifying CSS and JavaScript files, utilising browser caching, and optimising picture sizes to increase website speed. Remember not to chase a perfect score on Lighthouse or similar tools; we should be improving site speed for the benefit and efficiency of users, not to get a green light on a third-party tool.
Mobile-Friendly Design: It’s essential to ensure your website is mobile-friendly, given that most internet users access websites via mobile devices. To offer a seamless device experience, use responsive design concepts, improve mobile page speed, and integrate mobile-friendly pop-ups.
XML sitemap: An XML sitemap is a “map” of all of the pages on the site that you want search engines to know about and index. Once created, the XML sitemap URL should be submitted to search engines. For Google, you can do this through Google Search Console. Update the sitemap frequently to add new pages and remove outdated ones. It is best to use an automated solution if you can, so the file should remain current.
Schema Markup: Implement structured data markup (Schema.org) to provide search engines with more information about the content of your website. This may make your site eligible for rich snippets that allow your website to be more noticeable in search results, increasing click-through rates.

What are the Common Tech SEO Issues?

While applying technical SEO tactics is essential, it’s equally crucial to avoid blunders that can negatively impact the performance of your website.

Here are some typical SEO errors to avoid:

Duplicate Content: Search engines need clarification if the same or similar information appears on several pages or domains, which will hurt your website’s chances of ranking well. Make sure your content is original, and in the case of very similar content, use canonical tags or redirects.
Broken links and 404 errors: Broken links can degrade the user experience and prevent search engines from crawling your website effectively. Check your website frequently for broken links, and immediately fix them by changing URLs or implementing the appropriate redirects.
Missing or improperly optimised meta tags: Meta tags, including title tags and meta descriptions, give users and search engines important information. Ensure each page includes distinctive and relevant keywords to increase click-through rates and search rankings.
Images that aren’t well-optimised: Well-optimised images can help ensure the page loads quickly and enhances user experience. Reduce the weight and dimensions of your images, give them informative filenames and alt tags, and use lazy-loading strategies to optimise them.
Thin Content: Poor search rankings might result from thin or low-quality content that needs more depth and usefulness. Create specific and exciting content that fulfils user goals, is genuinely helpful to the query, includes appropriate keywords, and offers valuable insights to visitors.

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How do I Fix Common Tech SEO Issues?

Maintaining a healthy website and maximising organic search visibility need finding and fixing common tech SEO issues. A step-by-step procedure for resolving technical SEO concerns is shown below:

Conduct a Website Audit

Perform a thorough website audit to find technical problems such as broken links, duplicate content, slow page speed, and other difficulties. To achieve the best possible website performance, deal with each issue methodically with the advice of an SEO professional.

Set website speed as a top priority

By measuring it with programmes like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix, you can identify the elements that are harming page load speed, such as massive photo sizes, many scripts, or server response times. Image optimisation, CSS and JavaScript minification, browser caching, and, if necessary, hosting plan upgrades should all be considered.

Enhance Mobile Experience

Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see whether your website is mobile-friendly. You can make changes to ensure accurate page rendering, simple navigation, and quick loading on mobile devices. It is important to use a responsive design concept and avoid invasive pop-up windows that could degrade the experience and annoy users.

Fix Broken Links

Use SEO tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console to check your website for broken links. Broken links should be replaced, redirected to relevant pages, or updated with new URLs. This guarantees a better user experience and aids in the efficient crawling and indexing of your website by search engines.

Improve site structure and navigation

Check your website’s structure and menus to ensure they are user and crawler-friendly. To make it simple to navigate and for search engines to crawl your website, use logical, descriptive URLs, a clear hierarchy with key categories and subcategories, and make continued use of good internal linking.

Monitor and Maintain

Use analytics tools to regularly check the performance of your website and run periodic audits to find and fix any potential new technical SEO problems. To guarantee that your website remains optimised, keep up with the most recent algorithm updates and best practices.

Resolving Tech SEO Issues

Technical SEO problems can significantly affect how visible and effective your website is in search engine results.

You may strengthen the technical foundation of your website, improve user experience, and increase organic search exposure by putting the tactics mentioned above into practice and carefully resolving common tech SEO issues.

To maintain long-term success in the constantly changing digital environment, remain proactive in recognising and fixing technical SEO difficulties.

Nikki Halliwell

Based in Manchester, UK, Nikki is a freelance Technical SEO Consultant. She has worked at several agencies and in-house and has worked across the health, hospitality and fashion industries and more. Nikki enjoys working with eCommerce websites and beyond to ensure that websites are easy to find, load quickly and work efficiently.