As a website owner, you invest a significant amount of time and effort in creating compelling content. However, after your content is created, it’s crucial to focus on technical SEO cleanup to ensure optimal performance and rankings. Technical SEO involves fixing errors that can negatively impact your website’s search engine optimization. In this article, we will explore why technical SEO cleanup is important and provide you with a comprehensive checklist to get started. But before we dive into the details, let’s understand the significance of technical SEO.
Why is Technical SEO Cleanup Important?
Google and other search engines evaluate numerous factors to determine a website’s ranking. One of the most critical factors is providing a seamless and error-free browsing experience for users. When search engines crawl and index your site, they take note of broken links, missing pages, and unnecessary redirects. These factors are used to assess the safety and security of your website’s browsing experience.
While you may have launched your website without any errors initially, it’s important to note that errors can emerge over time due to various reasons. Your website’s pages and content may evolve and change to align with your company’s evolving messaging. New pages may be added, content may be rewritten, or your site may undergo a restructuring or rebranding that leads to URL changes. As your website and business grow, it becomes crucial to stay on top of these errors.
Allowing users to encounter 404 errors, redirect loops, or slow-loading pages can disrupt their browsing experience and even lead to negative impacts on your website’s rankings. Search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, and Baidu, prioritize providing users with a cohesive and uninterrupted browsing experience. Keeping your site error-free not only helps build trust with search engines but also enhances your website’s rankings.
Tools and Resources for Technical SEO Audit
Performing a technical SEO audit requires the right tools and resources to identify and fix errors effectively. While there are several third-party SEO auditing tools available, some of them can be expensive. However, you can leverage free resources provided by Google to get started. Two primary tools we recommend are Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free platform that offers valuable insights into your website’s performance. It provides information about errors, search traffic, and HTML improvements. By utilizing Search Console, you can easily identify and address issues that may be impacting your website’s SEO.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is another powerful tool that helps you understand how users navigate your website. It provides data on bounce rates, exit pages, and drops in traffic from various sources. By analyzing this data, you can gain valuable insights to make informed changes and improvements to your website.
Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a third-party program that mimics a search engine indexing bot. It can be used to find SEO errors on your website. While the free version is somewhat limited and suitable for websites with fewer than 500 pages, it can still provide valuable information. If your website has more than 500 pages, you may need to upgrade to the full version for a comprehensive audit.
By leveraging these free tools, you can gather a wealth of information about your website and make informed decisions to improve its technical SEO.
Technical SEO Audit Checklist
To help you maintain a healthy website, we have developed a comprehensive technical SEO audit checklist. This checklist covers three pillars of SEO: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. Let’s dive into each section to understand the key elements to focus on.
On-Page SEO Audit Checklist
On-page SEO refers to optimizing elements within your website’s pages. It includes addressing issues related to duplicate content, internal linking, keyword rankings, heading tags, and image elements.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is a significant issue that can harm your website’s SEO. Google considers pages with less than 80% uniqueness across your domain (and sometimes across the entire internet) as duplicate content. It’s crucial to identify and fix duplicate content to avoid penalties and maintain a strong online presence.
To fix duplicate content, carefully review all landing pages, interior pages, product or service pages, and contact forms. Look for repetitiveness or copied content, and rewrite it to ensure uniqueness on each page.
Internal Linking Strategy
Internal linking plays a vital role in enhancing user experience and SEO. By linking relevant pages and resources within your website, you can keep users engaged and encourage them to explore more of your content.
Review your old pages and articles to find opportunities for internal linking. Make sure to link only to relevant content and avoid over-linking. While there is no set limit for the number of links within content, it’s recommended to keep it reasonable and not include excessive links.
Keyword Rankings and Research
Keywords are the foundation of how users search for information online. Conduct thorough keyword research to understand how people are searching for content related to your website. This research will help you identify user queries and create relevant content to address their needs.
After identifying relevant keywords, incorporate them into your headlines and content. Optimize your website’s content to align with the keywords you want to rank for.
Heading Tags
Heading tag errors can negatively impact your website’s SEO. Ensure that each page has unique and appropriate heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.). Duplicate heading tags, multiple heading tags on a page, or missing heading tags should be corrected to enhance your website’s SEO performance.
Image Elements – Image Alt Tags
Image alt tags provide additional information about the content of an image. Optimizing image alt tags helps search engines understand the image’s context and display it in relevant searches.
Ensure that all images on your website have proper alt tags. Address any missing alt tags to improve your website’s accessibility and SEO.
Image Elements – Image Title Tags
Image title tags provide information about an image when a user hovers over it. While not directly related to SEO, they contribute to a better user experience.
Check for missing image title tags and add them to your images to enhance user engagement and improve search engine visibility.
Off-Page SEO Audit Checklist
Off-page SEO focuses on elements that happen outside of your website, primarily related to inbound or referral link profiles. This section includes evaluating your backlink profile and ensuring its quality.
Backlink Profile Evaluation
Your backlink profile consists of websites that link to your website. A strong backlink profile with quality links from reputable domains can significantly impact your website’s SEO.
Regularly monitor your backlink profile and identify any low-quality or spammy links. Disavow any links that can potentially harm your website’s SEO. Building a strong backlink profile takes time, but it’s worth the effort to improve your website’s rankings.
Technical SEO Audit Checklist
The technical SEO checklist focuses on codes and signals that impact your website’s performance but are not visible to browsing users. This section covers issues such as unsecured content, URL redirects, broken links, and meta information optimization.
Unsecured Content
Search engines prioritize safe and secure browsing experiences. When users encounter unsecured content on a secure website, it can lead to warning messages and negatively impact user trust.
Ensure that all internal content on your website is secure. Fix missing links or images that may be causing unsecured content warnings. Additionally, review external links to ensure they are secure as well.
URL Redirects
URL redirects, such as 301, 302, and 303 errors, can affect your website’s crawl budget. Excessive redirects can consume the daily crawl budget allocated by search engine bots, potentially impacting the number of pages crawled.
Fix 3XX errors by replacing the redirected URLs with the new URLs. This will ensure a smoother browsing experience and optimize your website’s crawlability.
Broken Links
Broken links, also known as 4XX errors, can frustrate users and negatively impact your website’s SEO. Identify and fix broken links to provide a seamless browsing experience.
Utilize tools like Search Console’s Crawl Errors Report to identify and address broken link errors. Offering uninterrupted browsing and minimizing broken links can significantly benefit your website’s rankings.
Server-Side Errors
Server-side errors, such as non-responsive, 503, and 504 errors, can occur during peak browsing hours or heavy server load. While these errors are challenging to predict, monitoring them is crucial to maintaining a healthy website.
Diagnose server activity to identify and address server-side errors. If certain pages consistently throw server errors, investigate the construction or accessibility of those pages.
Redirect Chains
Redirect chains occur when a series of redirects lead search engine bots on a long path to acquire content. These chains can result from site redesigns or changes in URL structure, leading to unnecessary redirects.
Fix redirect chains by replacing the last chain link with the first link. This will eliminate unnecessary redirects and optimize your website’s crawl budget.
Meta Information – Meta Titles
Meta titles may not directly impact SEO, but they play a crucial role in attracting users within search engine results. Craft unique and compelling meta titles for each page, incorporating relevant keywords and enticing users to click on your link.
Ensure that meta titles are between 50 and 70 characters and represent the page’s content accurately. Avoid duplication and create a unique meta title for every page.
Meta Information – Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions serve a similar purpose as meta titles, providing users with a brief preview of the content on your page. Craft unique meta descriptions that are between 100 and 130 characters, providing relevant information and encouraging users to click on your link.
Avoid missing meta descriptions, as search engines may generate them automatically, limiting your control over how your page is represented in search results.
Schema Markup
Schema markup is a powerful SEO technique that allows you to communicate directly with search engines. By implementing schema markup, you can provide detailed information about your content, such as recipes, blog posts, or events.
Utilize tools like Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to verify and optimize your schema markup. This can significantly enhance your website’s visibility in search results.
Additional Considerations
While the checklist covers essential aspects of technical SEO, there are additional areas to focus on to improve your website’s health.
Optimizing Site Speed
Website speed is a critical factor in providing a seamless browsing experience. Slow-loading pages can lead to high bounce rates and negatively impact your SEO.
Minimize server calls, optimize image sizes, and consider upgrading your hosting service to improve site speed. Tools like Pingdom can help monitor your site’s load times and identify areas for improvement.
International Targeting
If your website targets international audiences, consider implementing hreflang tags to target different languages. Google’s International Targeting Report within Search Console provides insights into hreflang errors and helps maintain proper search signals.
Site Security
Ensuring a secure browsing experience is vital for gaining user trust and enhancing SEO. Websites running on HTTPS or with secure SSL certificates receive rankings boost from Google.
Monitor your website’s security using Google’s Security Report in Search Console. Address any security issues promptly to maintain a secure browsing environment.
With this comprehensive technical SEO audit checklist, you can effectively identify and address errors that may be impacting your website’s SEO performance. Remember to regularly audit your website and make necessary improvements to maintain a healthy online presence.
Kick-Start Your Technical SEO with WebLitchi
At WebLitchi, we are dedicated to helping businesses improve their website’s health and performance. We offer customized and actionable recommendations to enhance your website’s technical SEO. Whether you are looking for a full SEO audit or need assistance with specific areas, our team of experts is here to help.
Contact us today to kick-start your technical SEO journey with WebLitchi, a leading website design and SEO company based in Chicago.