Getting your technical SEO in order.

If you want a successful website or webshop, the foundation is very important. Everything needs to be right: the design, the technology, the navigation, the images and the texts. But the structure is also of great importance when it comes to text and images. That’s what we call technical SEO. With good technical SEO you can make sure a website scores highly in search engines (Google, Yahoo or Bing). Currently, Google is the search engine used in the Netherlands more than 90% of the time. With Webba, we’ll get your technical SEO in order.

What is technical SEO

Technical SEO is optimising the technical aspects of a website. In doing so, you take the following components into account:

Website structure

Choose a simple structure, so keep the setup simple and scalable. Limit the number of clicks; the rule of thumb is a maximum of 3 clicks from the homepage to reach any page.

Indexing & crawling

It’s important that the website is clearly visible to search engines. You can check this by linking the website to Google Search Console. You can see directly which pages are to be indexed and fix any errors.

Page speed

Page speed is of great importance to the user experience and therefore conversion. For search engines, this is an important indicator. In Google Search Console and Google PageSpeed Insights, you can, among other things, measure the speed of a website or page.

Mobile first

Mobile is now used more than a laptop or desktop. That’s why it’s of great importance that the website first and foremost works optimally on mobile. To do that, you also need to take the mobile visitor into account in the design. Search engines love it when a website is optimally set up for mobile devices.

Technical SEO optimisation

With good technical SEO, you can make sure your website or webshop will be indexed sooner by search engines. If you’ve set up the technical foundation well, your content will be indexed faster and better in the organic search results.

Google normally takes two to three months to index a text or page. When technical SEO isn’t in order, you’ll rank lower in the search results.

How do you ensure a good foundation for your technical SEO?

To set up the technical SEO foundation well, you need to take multiple components into account:

Sitemap

Every website must have a sitemap. Only then will all the pages listed in the sitemap be seen by search engines.

Robots.txt

With robots.txt, you give guidelines on what should and shouldn’t be indexed. In a robots.txt file, you can state exceptions, such as pages of a login environment.

A secure connection (SSL)

If the website uses HTTPS, it’s a secured website. You then have an SSL certificate, which you can recognise by a lock icon in the address bar.

Schema markup/Structured data

Schema markup gives structure to a website that search engines can view. What fits best depends on your page.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs indicate the route within the website. Think of it as leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, so you always know the way back. You often see breadcrumbs at the top of the website as, for example, “category-subcategory-product”.

On-page SEO and content marketing

With a good foundation, a website still isn’t finished. On-page SEO and good content are very important. With on-page SEO and content marketing, you need to think of good URLs, headers and content in which keywords are used.

Do you have questions about this, or would you like to grab a coffee sometime? At Webba we have delicious coffee and really lovely colleagues. Those colleagues are also very knowledgeable in testing your website and giving suitable advice. We’ll get your technical SEO in order.

Jan Leijssenaar – commercial director