SEO requires detailed technical care

 

Care and attention to detail generally make sense - not just in terms of SEO. But especially when it comes to technical SEO, extreme care on all of them - eventually many, technical details are extremely important. Even very small mistakes can have catastrophic consequences for your visibility in Google - and if you forget to implement the latest standards, you will miss out on the extra boost it can provide. 

The challenge is so "just" that today there are really many technical SEO conditions. You probably know some of them - but are you sure you know them all? Do you know what the latest standards are and to what extent they must be met? In this post, we are going to take a look at some of the technical SEO requirements that you should ask yourself and your developers. If you are in doubt about any of it or want help with this - a little difficult part of SEO, then we are of course very happy to help. 

The first step is proper indexability

Whatever else you do, the first and most important thing is that Google can crawl and index your website correctly. Because if they can not find your pages and read the content, then there is nothing to optimize on. The first step - which far too many forget - is to establish a correct picture of your website's indexability and actual indexing.

Do you have too few - or too many, pages indexed in relation to how many you have published and want indexed? Both too many and too few are signs that you have problems that should be investigated further. Unfortunately, many people are not aware of the many technical factors that can completely or partially prevent or limit Google's ability to read all of your pages. Or vice versa, confuse them with a lot of URL variations that do not actually lead to unique content. 

In addition to obvious restrictions such as password-protected pages and pages that (intentionally or by mistake) are excluded with Robots.txt or META robots, there are also a number of other things that can cause problems. Some of the most common are:

JavaScript
JavaScript does not have to be an SEO problem - but it is just very often. This is due to the way it is often implemented. This applies both if your entire website is based on JavaScript frameworks such as Angular or React, or if it is just individual text and link elements on your pages that are JavaScript dependent. 
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Technical Duplicate Content
If Google can access multiple URLs that point to the same content - e.g. multiple domain variations (with and without www or http and HTTP), products that fall into multiple categories, filtering and sorting, then it can cause serious indexing issues. 

Incorrect implementation of CANONICAL tags
We often experience that CANONICAL tags are incorrectly implemented on websites. And it almost always causes serious indexing issues. 

Navigation problems
Many websites suffer from not being able to click through to all pages, but e.g. have to fill out forms or search to find them all - and Google does not. Many people mistakenly believe that it can be solved with XML sitemaps. But even though it may contribute to Google actually finding all pages, it does not mean that it will be indexed - and even less that they will actually rank on anything. It needs internal links to all pages! The above are just a few examples of the most common causes of indexing problems. In practice, there are many more. Identifying all the ones you may have requires in-depth knowledge of how Google works. It's a bit like looking for not just one needle in a haystack - but an unknown number of needles in an unknown number of haystacks!

Missing or incorrect Schema data

I have written a lot about Schema data. And for good reason. Properly implemented Schema data can greatly help improve your visibility in Google. But there are a number of major challenges with Schema data, which means that the vast majority of websites are far from as well Schema-optimized as they could be. The first challenge is to figure out which Schema data should be used. In this connection, few people are aware that Schema is a very "living" standard. The object types you implemented just a few years ago are not necessarily still the right ones. The standard is constantly expanding, new object types are being added and this offers new - and usually better, opportunities. But there are also ongoing constraints. One of the most recent major changes was when Google in the autumn chose to introduce a number of strong restrictions on Schema review/ratings. It pays to be extremely detail-oriented in relation to Schema. And these are the few, unfortunately. 

Mobile optimization is not just a responsive design

Fortunately, most people today make responsive websites - web designs that automatically adapt to different screen sizes. So far so good. Unfortunately, that is far from enough today. You need to go into much more detail if you want the best rating by Google. The first serious weakness many websites have is in terms of design. That your web site is responsive is not enough - if e.g. navigation elements and buttons are too small, or pop-up messages dominate the entire screen, so it's hard on Google's rating of your website. And even a perfectly responsive design is not quite enough today - you should also implement AMP. At least on all the page types that are well suited for it. And just like with responsive design, AMP is not just AMP. It can be done in many ways and again the devil is in the detail. 

The speed can always get better

Both Google and your customers love a fast website. It provides better rankings and higher conversion rates. In short, it gives many more customers! Nevertheless, we, unfortunately, find that most websites have far too little focus on just speed. And yes, I know this is a very complex area and it can be really costly to increase the speed of your website just a little bit. But it is nonetheless really important. Speed ​​optimization is a good example that it is the sum of all the small details that make the outcome. There is (unfortunately) no simple speed button you can just turn on. As a rule, it is the combination of a lot of things - image compression, ser setup, coding, caching, etc. that makes the outcome. 

Website optimization in multiple languages

If your website is available in several languages, there are a number of important details that you should get in place to get the best possible visibility in all your markets. First and foremost, good architecture is important. Both sub-directories, sub-domains, or country domains can be used, but it is extremely important that you are very, very careful with the setup. Unfortunately, we often find that websites fail at this point. Another big problem we experience is when websites try to identify where the users are coming from, and then "force" them to the "right" version. In addition to the problems it can cause for users (eg a Dane living in the UK), it can also very easily cause serious problems in the search engines. It is also the fewest websites that take advantage of the huge advantage of correctly implementing Hreflang tags. Even the websites that use hreflang often do not do it completely correctly. If there are errors in the code, it does not work at all - and if there are deficiencies or weaknesses, then the effect is much smaller. So also at this point, it is important to pay close attention to the small details. 

Need help with technical SEO?

Whether you have a small or very large website, and no matter how skilled your developers are, it can be a good idea to get some help with the SEO services in Karachi technical details. Then you can be sure that you are completely up-to-date with the requirements set by Google.