When you want to gain a higher page rank and benefit from the traffic the search engines can provide, you need good technical SEO. While content is vital to your ranking, you can have the best content in the world and still struggle to rank high, if your technical SEO isn’t excellent.
Unresolved technical SEO issues can lead to a lower ranking. It’s very important to spend time this year addressing any website issues causing lower ranking. Optimizing your website with the most important technical SEO factors will help you gain the ranking you desire.
Most Important Technical SEO Factors for 2021
1. Mobile-Friendly Website
It’s 2021 and you need to have a responsive or mobile-friendly website design. If your website doesn’t load properly on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, you’ll struggle to gain top ranking.
A large percentage of Google’s users access the search engine from a mobile device. This has caused Google to cater to mobile search more and more. Your website has to be mobile-friendly in 2021 or you’re already fighting a losing battle.
2. Optimize Your XML Sitemap
If you don’t have an XML Sitemap, start by creating one. Once you have a sitemap, it’s time to optimize it for better ranking.
With an optimized XML sitemap, you gain the ability to get indexed faster and rank higher. If you’re using WordPress, this is an easy task to achieve. Google XML Sitemaps and Yoast offer two plugins to easily create and optimize your XML sitemap.
3. Do a Technical Audit and Fix the Errors
A technical SEO audit should be done weekly and any on-page SEO errors should be fixed. When you stay on top of any on-page SEO errors, you’ll have a better chance of ranking high in the search results.
4. Avoid Duplicate Content with Canonical URLs
When you add a canonical tag to a URL, it tells search engines the URL is the master copy of that page or post. By using canonical URLs, you can avoid duplicate content issues, which can help you rank faster.
5. Fix Broken Links
Anytime your website has a broken link, it needs to be fixed. These links will hurt your SEO in multiple ways, but mainly because they will cause a poor user experience.
You can add a tool to your website to check for broken links regularly. A simple tool, such as Broken Link Checker makes this process much easier.
6. Use ALT Image Text Properly
Every image on your website gives you the option to add alt text or alternative text. Since Google cannot see what the image is, this text tells Google what the image represents.
When using alt image text, make sure you’re using your main keywords or a variation of your keyword in the text. This will help to improve your search engine ranking and your image search ranking.
7. Fix Crawl Errors
If you’re using Google Search Console, and you should be, you want to check for crawl errors once a week. If you find any errors, fix them. These technical issues may cause your site to perform poorly, which will hurt your ranking.
There are many things that go into the technical SEO of your website in 2021. You want to make sure to address all of these issues and any other technical SEO issues found on your website. If your goal is to rank higher this year, finding a Digital Marketing company to help clean up your site might be the solution.
Recent Comments