Sometime back, I discussed the most common mistakes of Content Marketing. Today I’ll shift gears to technical SEO checklist majorly, since a lot of users are confused whether they should spend time on Technical SEO, slightly touch the importance of content for your web search optimization. Technical SEO involves more of the technical aspects of a webpage found at its source code like, site speed, IP detection/redirection, HTTP headers, JavaScript, 301 and 302 redirects, crawler access, flash, mobile experience, international version or seo, analytics to name a few. Your website should be easily searchable, crawlable and indexed by the search engines. Let’s take a look at the most impactful technical tips that one should adhere to when launching a new website (or even incorporate on your existing websites) to have a winning SEO optimization process with best search visibility:
- Once your site goes live, register on Google Webmaster Tools. Here you can take a look at the external and internal site links, site maps, adjust Google bot, robots. text, tracking the keywords that are bringing traffic to your site, CTR of those keywords, site statistics and much more. To get the best SEO result, use Google webmaster Tools along with Google analytics. Google analytics, the driving force of internet marketing provides a deeper understanding on user interaction of your webpage.
- Search engines prefer human readable URL structure and keywords compatible with the content. Also do not alter or optimize URLs exposed to search engines. Maintain short URLs within 115 characters for maximum visibility. Each of the pages should have separate URL with paginated URLs. Also keep in mind, altering the URLs of a website can create a negative impact on the traffic while doing a 301.
- Include HTML site maps for users and search engines. It’s one of the key seo optimization tips. If your website is not exorbitantly big, one page can easily link other pages of your site. Link HTML sitemap from the home page of your website. Also include XML site maps only for search engines.
- Incorporate robots.txt file. It directs the search engines which portion of the website should be visible to the users and which portion to the administrator of the webpage. It crawls the entire site except the pages directed not to visit through robots. text file.
- SEO search engine optimization via social media Meta tags. It helps the marketer to determine how and what information of the content would be displayed in social feed to appear snazzy and click worthy.
- Properly integrate rel =‘’canonical’’ link when you are re-posting content from different source to your website in order to avoid getting penalized by the search engine.
- Optimization of site speed is one of the best seo tools to enhance ranking factor and user experience of a website. Slow sites have higher chances of abandonment irrespective of where you rank. According to a report of search engine journal, 51 percent of American shoppers asserted that they would discard a purchase from a site which is slow. The conversion rates of a page that takes around six seconds to load hits the rock bottom with -50%. Remember to evaluate the load time for the main pages of your site. Also enable the compression and caching. Do optimize and compress web images for your site before deploying. Minify CSS, JS and HTML and make sure to use a fast host.
- Properly implement 301 for your website. Try to avoid bad redirects like 302 and 307. Redirect chains reduces link equity association with the primary URL. Google in its update declared that several redirects will cause the search engine to stop tracking redirect chain.
- Mobile web search optimization is a must for every website as its official now that mobile unfriendly website will rank low in Google. Make sure analytics is rightly set up. If you are using dynamic serving, go for Vary HTTP header. It enables the search engines to understand content for mobile user. Make a comparative analysis between the intent of mobile and desktop visitors to your site. Eliminate faulty mobile redirects that could hamper mobile organic performance of your site. Use appropriate markup to balance the relationship between your mobile site and desktop site.
- Analyze properly the international versions of your website URL and make sure it’s in native language. Specify and enable the targeted country in webmaster tools. Execute hreflang if needed. If it’s a multi version site in similar language like English, do update the copy time to time. Also the website should reflect the currency of the targeted region.
- Make sure you have analytics tracking code in every page of your website. Take a look if it’s rightly capturing and tracing internal searches of your website. Also build up demographics tracking and create proper linking between Adwords and Adsense. Prohibit internal IP addresses, Meta refresh and JavaScript redirect to lower bounce rate of your site.
- Provide good and updated image description and apply the right alt attributes for web optimization of the images of your site. Search engines cannot locate an image. Appropriate text will help Google to identify the image and work on it. Also try to avoid excess flash if it’s a new website. It hampers your website traffic and conversation rate. Instead go for HTML 5 as its seo friendly and Google readable.
So far I discussed the technical aspects of SEO. Let’s now focus on the content part. Or to put it starkly, which of the search engine optimization techniques can provide better return on investment (ROI)? Undoubtedly, both are invaluable for web search engine optimization. If you are concerned about traffic, both are equally important for your website. We all know that the fountain head of traffic is content marketing. You can establish yourself as a brand and get repetitive flow of traffic via consistent output of compelling content. You cannot attract traffic solely concentrating on technical seo or cannot become popular through technical seo alone. Content marketing is still considered the root of success and one of the major seo tips for digital marketers. Way back in 1996, Bill Gates declared ‘’content is king’’. Twenty years down the line content still rules. Though we are at the highest apex of digital marketing success, content is still prized and sought after.
To get both right, be technically right first when you are setting up a website. Technical seo won’t win traffic for a site but it can make sure that a site can competently handle and deal with web traffic. SEO technical is a kind of a road that paves success to content marketing. Once the road is in place, standards are met and conventions are fulfilled, it’s the opportune time to concentrate and deliver original and quality content for seo website. Content marketing is a continuous process with moderate emphasis on technical seo for website. If you ask where to spend more of your time, technical seo or content, the answer is both. If you want to achieve top spots in the SERP, first you need to implement technical seo to build up your site for success. Then comes content marketing for massive exposure of your brand. Hence it is safe to conclude that content marketing and technical seo for a website go hand in hand. What are your website seo tips? How do you slot in your time between technical seo and content marketing?
