Top Technical SEO Strategies to Boost Your Website Performance

In today’s digital age, having a well-optimised website is crucial for businesses to succeed online. While content and backlinks often grab the spotlight, the technical foundation of your website plays an equally important role in determining its search engine rankings. Technical SEO is all about fine-tuning your website’s architecture to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index, while also improving user experience. In this blog, we’ll explore the top technical SEO strategies that can help you enhance your website’s performance and achieve better search engine rankings.

1. Speed Up Your Website

Nobody likes a slow website. A sluggish site can frustrate users and increase bounce rates, leading to poor rankings on Google. Page speed is a crucial factor for both user experience and SEO, and optimising it should be a top priority.

Here’s how you can speed up your website:

• Compress Images: Large images can slow down your site significantly. Use tools like TinyPNG or JPEG-Optimizer to compress images without losing quality. This simple step can make a big difference, as highlighted by Hostinger, which stresses the importance of image optimization.
• Enable Browser Caching: Browser caching allows your visitors to store files locally, so they don’t have to reload the entire page every time they visit. This reduces load times and improves user experience.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML: Minification removes unnecessary characters and spaces from your code, making it leaner and faster. SEMrush recommends minifying code as an effective way to boost page speed.

SEO Impact: A faster website improves user experience and reduces bounce rates, leading to higher rankings in search engine results, as speed is a critical ranking factor for SEO.

2. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

With more and more people using their smartphones to browse the web, it’s essential to ensure your website is mobile-friendly. Google’s mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of your site is now the primary version considered for ranking.

Here’s how to make your site mobile-friendly:

• Responsive Web Design: Ensure your website adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes. A responsive design automatically adjusts images, text, and layout, providing a smooth user experience across all devices.
• Optimise for Touch: Make sure buttons and links are large enough to be easily tapped on a mobile screen. Also, avoid using Flash, as it’s not supported on many mobile devices.
• Implement AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages): AMP helps create lightweight web pages that load quickly on mobile devices, which can significantly improve your mobile rankings.

SEO Impact: Mobile-friendliness ensures that your site is accessible and functional on all devices, which is crucial as search engines prioritize mobile-first indexing, directly impacting your search rankings.

3. Enhance Crawlability and Indexability

For your website to rank well on search engines, it needs to be easily crawlable and indexable. If search engines can’t find or understand your pages, they won’t rank them, no matter how good the content is.

Here’s how to improve crawlability and indexability:

• Create an XML Sitemap: An XML sitemap is like a roadmap for search engines, guiding them to all the important pages on your site. Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console ensures that your pages are indexed properly. SEMrush suggests that a well-structured sitemap is crucial for effective crawling.
• Use Robots.txt Wisely: The robots.txt file tells search engines which pages they can and cannot crawl. Make sure it’s properly configured to avoid blocking important pages.
• Avoid Duplicate Content: Duplicate content can confuse search engines and dilute your page’s ranking power. Use canonical tags to indicate the original version of a page, and set up 301 redirects for any duplicate pages. As advised by ILoveSEO, managing duplicate content is essential for maintaining a clean site architecture.

SEO Impact: Improving your site’s crawlability and indexability ensures search engines can efficiently discover, index, and rank your content, increasing the likelihood of appearing in relevant search results.

4. Secure Your Website with HTTPS

Website security is not just important for protecting your data—it’s also a ranking factor for Google. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) encrypts data between the user’s browser and your website, making it more secure and trustworthy.

Here’s how to secure your website:

• Install an SSL Certificate: An SSL certificate is a must for enabling HTTPS on your website. It secures data transmission and builds trust with your users. Hostinger notes that HTTPS is now a basic requirement for any site aiming to rank well on search engines.
• Regularly Update Security Protocols: Keep your website’s software, plugins, and themes up-to-date to protect against vulnerabilities.
• Use Strong Passwords: Implement strong password policies for all users accessing your website’s backend to prevent unauthorised access.

SEO Impact: Using HTTPS encrypts data, ensuring a secure connection, which is a ranking signal for Google and builds trust with users, potentially improving click-through rates and overall SEO performance.

5. Use Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data and schema markup are powerful tools that help search engines understand the content on your site better. By implementing schema markup, you can enhance your website’s search engine results with rich snippets, which provide more detailed information directly in the search results.

Here’s how to use structured data:

• Implement JSON-LD: JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is the preferred format for adding structured data to your website. It’s easy to implement and doesn’t interfere with your site’s HTML.
• Mark Up Key Content: Focus on marking up important content such as product information, reviews, events, and articles. This increases your chances of appearing in rich results like product carousels and review stars. ILoveSEO highlights that schema markup is crucial for improving visibility in search results.
• Validate Your Markup: Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure your schema markup is correctly implemented and free of errors.

SEO Impact: Implementing structured data and schema markup helps search engines understand your content better, which can enhance visibility in search results through rich snippets and improve click-through rates.

6. Optimise Your URL Structure

A clean and organised URL structure not only helps search engines understand your site’s hierarchy but also improves user experience. Well-optimised URLs are descriptive, concise, and include relevant keywords that reflect the page’s content.

Here’s how to optimise your URL structure:

• Use Descriptive Keywords: Incorporate relevant keywords into your URLs to help search engines and users understand the content of the page. Savit suggests that including keywords in URLs enhances both SEO and usability.
• Keep URLs Short and Simple: Avoid long, complex URLs with unnecessary parameters. Shorter URLs are easier to share and remember, improving usability and search rankings.
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing: While it’s important to include keywords, don’t overdo it. Focus on creating natural, readable URLs that accurately describe the page content.

SEO Impact: A clear, descriptive, and SEO-friendly URL structure improves user experience and helps search engines understand the content of your pages, positively influencing rankings and click-through rates.

7. Implement Internal Linking Best Practices

Internal linking is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of technical SEO. Internal links help distribute page authority throughout your website and guide users to other relevant content. Proper internal linking can also enhance the crawlability of your website, making it easier for search engines to understand the structure and hierarchy of your pages.

How to Implement Internal Linking:

• Use Descriptive Anchor Text: When creating internal links, use descriptive and relevant anchor text that clearly indicates the content of the linked page.
• Link to High-Authority Pages: Identify and link to high-authority pages within your website to pass on link equity and boost SEO.
• Create a Logical Link Structure: Ensure your internal linking follows a logical structure that aligns with the hierarchy of your content. This helps both users and search engines navigate your site more effectively.

SEO Impact: Proper internal linking helps distribute authority across your pages, boosts crawlability, and improves user experience, all of which can positively affect your search rankings.

8. Optimise Your Website’s Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage’s overall user experience. These factors include loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. Improving these metrics can significantly enhance your website’s user experience and search engine rankings.

Key Core Web Vitals Metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how quickly the largest content element becomes visible within the viewport. Aim for an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures the time it takes for a page to become interactive. Aim for an FID of 100 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures the visual stability of a page. Aim for a CLS score of 0.1 or less.

How to Optimise Core Web Vitals:

• Reduce JavaScript Execution: Optimise and minimise the use of JavaScript to reduce the time it takes for a page to become interactive.
• Optimise Server Response Times: Use a reliable hosting provider, employ content delivery networks (CDNs), and minimize server response times to improve loading speeds.
• Ensure Visual Stability: Avoid large, unexpected layout shifts by specifying size attributes for all images and videos.

SEO Impact: Websites that perform well in Core Web Vitals metrics are more likely to rank higher in search engine results, as these factors directly impact user experience.

9. Set Up a Proper 404 Page

A 404 page is displayed when a user attempts to visit a webpage that doesn’t exist on your site. While a 404 error can be frustrating, setting up a user-friendly 404 page can minimize the negative impact on user experience and potentially redirect users to other relevant pages on your site.

How to Create a User-Friendly 404 Page:

• Provide Helpful Links: Include links to popular pages, the homepage, or a site search box to help users find what they’re looking for.
• Use Clear Language: Clearly explain that the page they’re looking for is not available, and provide alternative options.
• Maintain Your Website’s Branding: Ensure the 404 page is consistent with your site’s overall design and branding.

SEO Impact: While 404 pages themselves do not impact SEO directly, a well-designed 404 page can keep users engaged on your site and reduce bounce rates, which is beneficial for SEO.

10. Regularly Conduct Technical SEO Audits

A technical SEO audit involves reviewing all aspects of your website that can affect its search engine performance. Conducting regular audits helps identify and fix issues before they become bigger problems, ensuring that your site remains fully optimized for search engines.

Key Elements of a Technical SEO Audit:

• Check for Broken Links: Identify and fix broken links, as they can negatively affect user experience and crawlability.
• Ensure Proper Use of Canonical Tags: Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page to index.
• Review Site Architecture: Ensure your site architecture is logical, with a clear hierarchy of categories and subcategories.

SEO Impact: Regular technical SEO audits help maintain your website’s health, optimize performance, and ensure all elements are in line with best practices for search engine optimization.

11. Utilize Lazy Loading for Images and Videos

Lazy loading is a technique that delays the loading of non-critical resources (like images and videos) until they are needed. This optimization helps reduce initial page load times and improves the overall user experience, especially on pages with a lot of visual content.

How to Implement Lazy Loading:

• Use Lazy Load Attributes: Implement the loading=”lazy” attribute in your HTML code for images and iframes.
• Consider JavaScript Libraries: For more advanced lazy loading, consider using JavaScript libraries that offer more control over what content is loaded and when.

SEO Impact: By improving page load times, lazy loading can enhance both user experience and search engine rankings, particularly for mobile users with slower internet connections.

12. Ensure Proper Use of HTTP Headers

HTTP headers provide information about the response or request. Proper use of HTTP headers like caching, content security policy (CSP), and X-Content-Type-Options can enhance your site’s security, performance, and SEO.

Key HTTP Headers for SEO:

• Cache-Control: Helps browsers cache resources more efficiently, reducing load times for repeat visitors.
• Content Security Policy (CSP): Prevents a range of attacks, such as cross-site scripting (XSS), by specifying which resources are allowed to be loaded.
• X-Content-Type-Options: Prevents browsers from interpreting files as a different MIME type, which can help prevent certain types of attacks.

SEO Impact: Proper use of HTTP headers ensures a more secure and efficient website, contributing to a better user experience and higher search engine rankings.

13. Optimise for Voice Search

With the rise of smart devices and voice-activated assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, optimising for voice search is becoming increasingly important. Voice search queries are often longer and more conversational than typed searches. Therefore, your content should be optimised to answer questions directly and clearly.

How to Optimise for Voice Search:

• Focus on Natural Language Keywords: Use long-tail keywords and phrases that people are likely to use in natural speech. Tools like AnswerThePublic can help identify common questions related to your industry.
• Answer Questions Clearly: Ensure your content answers common questions concisely and directly. This increases your chances of being featured in Google’s voice search results.
• Create FAQ Sections: Having an FAQ section that answers common questions can be particularly effective for voice search optimization.

SEO Impact: Optimising for voice search helps you capture a growing segment of search traffic, especially on mobile and smart home devices.

14. Improve Image Optimization and Accessibility

Images play a vital role in making content engaging and informative, but they can also affect SEO if not properly optimised. Besides optimising for speed, you should ensure images are accessible to all users, including those using screen readers.

How to Optimise Images:

• Use Descriptive File Names: Instead of generic names like “IMG1234.jpg,” use descriptive file names like “red-running-shoes.jpg” to help search engines understand what the image is about.
• Add Alt Text: Alt text provides a text alternative for images, which is useful for accessibility and helps search engines understand the content of the image.
• Ensure Responsiveness: Use responsive images that adjust to different screen sizes for better user experience and faster loading times.

SEO Impact: Properly optimised images can enhance SEO by improving page load times, enhancing user experience, and providing additional content for search engines to index.

15. Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers distributed across various geographical locations. A CDN stores cached versions of your website’s static content, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, on these servers to deliver them quickly to users based on their location.

Benefits of Using CDNs:

• Improved Page Load Speed: CDNs reduce the physical distance between the server and the user, leading to faster page load times.
• Enhanced Security: CDNs can provide additional security features, such as DDoS protection, adding a layer of security to your site.
• Better User Experience: Faster loading times and reliable content delivery enhance the overall user experience, reducing bounce rates.

SEO Impact: By speeding up page load times and improving user experience, CDNs can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings.

16. Monitor and Optimise Your Website’s Log Files

Log files contain detailed information about how search engines crawl your website. By analysing your website’s log files, you can gain valuable insights into how search engines interact with your site and identify potential issues that could affect your SEO.

How to Optimise Using Log Files:

• Identify Crawl Errors: Look for patterns in your log files to identify pages that search engines have difficulty accessing.
• Optimise Crawl Budget: Ensure search engines are spending their crawl budget on your most important pages by identifying and fixing crawl errors.
• Monitor Bot Activity: Keep track of how often search engines visit your site and which pages they crawl most frequently.

SEO Impact: Monitoring log files helps ensure that search engines can efficiently crawl and index your website, improving visibility and rankings.

17. Leverage Browser Caching

Browser caching stores certain elements of your website on the user’s local device, so they don’t have to be downloaded again on subsequent visits. This can significantly improve load times for returning visitors.

How to Leverage Browser Caching:

• Set Expiration Dates: Use HTTP headers to specify how long browsers should cache your resources.
• Cache Static Content: Static content, like images and scripts, can be cached for longer periods.
• Test and Monitor: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to test your caching settings and optimise them for maximum performance.

SEO Impact: Improved load times from effective caching can lead to better user experiences and higher search engine rankings.

18. Ensure Proper Canonicalization

Canonicalization helps prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a webpage when multiple versions are available. Proper use of canonical tags is crucial for consolidating link signals and improving your site’s overall SEO health.

How to Implement Canonicalization:

• Use Canonical Tags: Implement canonical tags on pages with similar or duplicate content to point search engines to the preferred version.
• Avoid Duplicate URLs: Ensure that each page on your site has a unique URL. Use 301 redirects to consolidate duplicate pages.
• Monitor Your Site: Regularly check your site for duplicate content issues and correct them using canonical tags.

SEO Impact: Proper canonicalization prevents duplicate content penalties and helps ensure that your preferred pages receive the full SEO benefits.

19. Optimise Website Navigation and Menu Structure

A well-organised website navigation and menu structure can significantly enhance user experience and help search engines crawl your site more efficiently. Clear, logical navigation allows both users and search engines to find important content easily.

How to Optimise Website Navigation:

• Keep Menus Simple and Logical: Avoid overly complex menu structures. Use clear labels that accurately describe the content of the pages.
• Use Breadcrumbs: Breadcrumbs help users understand their location on your site and improve the internal linking structure.
• Highlight Key Pages: Ensure that your most important pages are easily accessible from the main menu or homepage.

SEO Impact: Improved navigation enhances user experience, reduces bounce rates, and makes it easier for search engines to understand your site’s structure.

20. Integrate Social Media Metadata

Integrating social media metadata, such as Open Graph tags and Twitter Cards, ensures that your content is displayed correctly when shared on social media platforms. This can improve click-through rates and increase traffic to your site.

How to Implement Social Media Metadata:

• Add Open Graph Tags: Open Graph tags control how your content appears on Facebook and LinkedIn. Include metadata for the title, description, and image of the content.
• Implement Twitter Cards: Use Twitter Cards to control how your content appears on Twitter. Similar to Open Graph, these tags define the title, description, and image for your tweets.
• Monitor Social Shares: Use tools like BuzzSumo to monitor how often and where your content is shared on social media.

SEO Impact: While social signals are not a direct ranking factor, increased visibility and engagement on social media can drive more traffic to your site, indirectly benefiting your SEO.

21. Implement Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

Server-side rendering (SSR) involves rendering a webpage on the server rather than in the browser. This approach allows search engines to crawl your site more efficiently, especially for websites built with JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.js.

Benefits of Server-Side Rendering:

• Improved SEO for JavaScript Sites: SSR ensures that search engines can index all your content, which is crucial for JavaScript-heavy websites.
• Faster Initial Page Loads: SSR can deliver a fully-rendered page to the browser, improving load times and user experience.
• Better Social Media Sharing: With SSR, the server sends a fully rendered HTML page, improving the preview experience when your content is shared on social media.

SEO Impact: Server-side rendering makes your website more accessible to search engines, enhancing its crawlability and indexability, which can boost rankings.

22. Utilise HTTP/2 for Faster Data Transfer

HTTP/2 is a major revision of the HTTP network protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP/2 improves website performance by allowing multiple requests and responses to be sent over a single connection, reducing latency and improving load times.

How to Utilise HTTP/2:

• Check Server Compatibility: Ensure your web server supports HTTP/2. Most modern servers, such as Apache and Nginx, offer HTTP/2 support.
• Enable HTTP/2: Enable HTTP/2 on your server to take advantage of faster data transfer capabilities.
• Monitor Performance: Use tools like Google Lighthouse to monitor the performance improvements after enabling HTTP/2.

SEO Impact: Faster data transfer speeds with HTTP/2 improve page load times and user experience, positively affecting search engine rankings.

23. Enhance Your Site’s International SEO with Hreflang Tags

If your website targets multiple languages or regions, using hreflang tags can help search engines understand the language and geographic targeting of your pages. This is particularly important for international SEO to ensure the right content is served to the right audience.

How to Implement Hreflang Tags:

• Use Correct Hreflang Attributes: Include hreflang tags in the HTML head of your pages to specify the language and country codes.
• Map Out Your Language and Regional Targeting: Identify the languages and regions your website targets and implement the appropriate hreflang attributes for each.
• Test with Google’s Hreflang Tools: Use tools like Google’s Hreflang Tags Testing Tool to ensure your tags are implemented correctly.

SEO Impact: Proper use of hreflang tags improves your website’s international SEO by delivering the right content to the right users, reducing bounce rates, and improving user engagement.

24. Optimise Your Website’s XML and HTML Sitemaps

XML and HTML sitemaps are essential for helping search engines understand your website’s structure and find all your important pages. While XML sitemaps are primarily for search engines, HTML sitemaps are user-facing and help visitors navigate your site.

How to Optimise Sitemaps:

• Keep Your XML Sitemap Updated: Regularly update your XML sitemap to reflect any changes in your website structure or new content additions.
• Prioritise Important Pages: Include only your most important pages in your XML sitemap to help search engines focus on the content you want indexed.
• Create a User-Friendly HTML Sitemap: An HTML sitemap should be easily accessible from your website’s footer and provide a clear overview of your site structure.

SEO Impact: Optimised sitemaps improve crawl efficiency, ensuring that search engines can discover and index your content more effectively, enhancing visibility and rankings.

25. Implement Effective Pagination for SEO

Pagination is a common practice for organising content into multiple pages, particularly for large eCommerce sites or blogs. Proper pagination ensures that search engines can crawl and index all pages of a series efficiently.

How to Implement Effective Pagination:

• Use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” Tags: These tags indicate the relationship between paginated pages, helping search engines understand how content is structured.
• Avoid Infinite Scroll Without Proper SEO: If using infinite scroll, ensure it’s implemented in a way that search engines can crawl all content (e.g., by providing a paginated view for search engines).
• Create a View-All Page: If possible, create a “view-all” page that consolidates all paginated content onto a single page, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index.

SEO Impact: Proper pagination helps prevent duplicate content issues and ensures that all pages are indexed, enhancing overall site SEO.

26. Manage Your Crawl Budget Efficiently

Crawl budget refers to the number of pages a search engine bot will crawl on your site during each visit. Efficient management of your crawl budget ensures that search engines are crawling and indexing your most important content.

How to Manage Crawl Budget:

• Avoid Crawl Traps: Ensure your site doesn’t have endless loops, duplicate content, or excessive redirects that can waste crawl budget.
• Optimize Robots.txt File: Use the robots.txt file to block search engines from crawling low-value or duplicate pages.
• Update Important Content Regularly: Regularly update your key pages to signal to search engines that they need to be crawled more frequently.

SEO Impact: Efficient crawl budget management ensures that search engines focus their resources on your most valuable pages, improving indexing and rankings.

27. Use Subdomain and Subfolder Strategies Wisely

Deciding whether to use a subdomain (e.g., blog.example.com) or a subfolder (e.g., example.com/blog) can have implications for SEO. While subdomains are treated as separate entities by search engines, subfolders are considered part of the main domain.

How to Choose Between Subdomains and Subfolders:

• Use Subfolders for SEO Benefit: Subfolders typically inherit the domain’s authority, which can boost SEO for the content hosted there.
• Use Subdomains When Necessary: Subdomains can be useful for hosting content that is significantly different from the main site (e.g., a separate shop or forum).
• Monitor Performance: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor the performance of your subdomains and subfolders to decide the best strategy for your site.

SEO Impact: Correct use of subdomains and subfolders can consolidate SEO efforts and improve overall domain authority.

28. Optimise JavaScript for SEO

JavaScript is increasingly used to create dynamic, engaging websites, but it can present challenges for SEO if not implemented correctly. Ensuring that JavaScript is crawlable and indexable is critical for maintaining search engine visibility.

How to Optimise JavaScript for SEO:

• Use SEO-Friendly Frameworks: Choose frameworks and libraries that are known for their SEO capabilities, such as React with server-side rendering.
• Make JavaScript Content Crawlable: Ensure that your important content is accessible without needing JavaScript or that it’s rendered server-side.
• Test with Google’s Fetch and Render: Use Google Search Console’s Fetch and Render tool to see how Google views your JavaScript content and make necessary adjustments.

SEO Impact: Optimising JavaScript ensures that search engines can fully access and index your content, maintaining and enhancing visibility.

29. Monitor and Improve Your Site’s Redirect Chains

Redirect chains occur when one URL redirects to another, which then redirects to yet another URL. Long redirect chains can slow down your website and waste crawl budget, affecting SEO.

How to Manage Redirect Chains:

• Audit Your Redirects Regularly: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to identify and clean up unnecessary redirect chains.
• Use 301 Redirects Wisely: Limit the number of redirects to improve load times and conserve crawl budget.
• Consolidate Redirects: Where possible, consolidate multiple redirects into a single redirect to improve site performance.

SEO Impact: Managing redirect chains reduces page load times and improves crawl efficiency, leading to better user experience and search engine rankings.

30. Ensure Proper Use of Noindex and Nofollow Tags

The noindex tag tells search engines not to index a specific page, while the nofollow tag tells them not to follow a specific link. These tags can help manage how your content is indexed and how link equity is passed.

How to Use Noindex and Nofollow Tags Effectively:

• Use Noindex for Low-Value Pages: Apply the noindex tag to pages that you don’t want to appear in search results, such as admin pages, duplicate content, or thin content pages.
• Use Nofollow for Untrusted Links: Apply the nofollow tag to links that point to untrusted sites or for sponsored and affiliate links.
• Monitor and Adjust: Regularly review your use of noindex and nofollow tags to ensure they are applied correctly and align with your SEO strategy.

SEO Impact: Proper use of noindex and nofollow tags helps control your site’s indexation, improve crawl efficiency, and manage link equity.

Conclusion

Technical SEO is the backbone of your overall SEO strategy. By optimising your website’s speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, security, structured data, and all these above points, you can significantly enhance its performance and improve its search engine rankings. These technical optimizations ensure that your site is accessible, fast, and secure, providing a better experience for both users and search engines.

Incorporating these strategies into your SEO plan will not only improve your website’s visibility but also help you stay competitive in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Start implementing these technical SEO strategies today to take your website’s performance to the next level.

For more tips on SEO and digital marketing, explore our other blogs that delve into various aspects of optimising your online presence.