11 Killer Technical SEO Factors That Will Boost Your Ranking | With Updated Check-List

We all have a basic understanding of What is SEO? and we have also discussed  On-Page and Off-Page so, along with these two types here is one of its major kinds you can say it's a third type of SEO.

Today in this blog post, we will discuss how technical SEO works? Why it is so important and what are the major factors.

So guys, let's hold a cup of tea 😜 , relax🙇  and start to read this post. Hope it will clear all your doubts regarding technical SEO 😊

Note: If You Don't Know What Is Blogging Go Here

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is known as one of the major types of SEO. it is some kind of rules and guidelines via you can ensure that your website meets modern search engine requirements. 

Technical SEO refers to improving the Technical requirements of a website as a means to increase the ranking of your pages in SERP.

There are a lot of things that come under the factors of technical SEO. by improving these aspects, you can increase your site ranking chances. 

Like;

improving your site Speed, creating a good user experience, optimize your site for mobile, and many more factors.

Before going to factors first, we should know the importance of technical SEO! at last, I have a surprise for you 😲

Why Is Technical SEO Important:

Before studying the factors of technical SEO first, we should have an idea of why technical SEO is so important? Is it worthy in 2020? so there could be many questions jumping in your mind 

so,

let's evaluate it that whether technical SEO is important and it really works for ranking higher in any search engine. 

whenever you post on your blog, if it indexes fast, that means you have managed a good technical SEO because fast indexing depends upon technical SEO management.

Google uses crawlers (bots) for understanding the site structure and behavior so, whenever they find a hard time to crawl your site then definitely, you won't rank on a higher position

because technical SEO contains many factors like Site speed, is your site is mobile-friendly? redirection, and many other factors so along with the best content and better on-page and off-page SEO you will have to manage your technical factors too.

Also Read: Descriptive Guide Of Off-Page Seo

 

Note: Keep in your mind without technical SEO, you can't even think to rank your site 😲 on higher positions on search engines. wheater you have managed all other SEO setting perfectly

Technical SEO Factors:

let's talk about the Technical SEO ranking factors. I will try to cover all these technical factors. After applying them, your site will definitely rank at the higher positions on SERP.

At last, the updated checklist will be provided to you peoples 

(1) Create XML SiteMap :

you can say sitemap is a map of your site. It will help the search engines to locate URLs(Links) and understand your site more properly while crawling.

Site-maps will help search engines to find URLs. In fact, according to a Google rep recently said that XML sitemaps are the "second important source" for locating the URLs.

indeed, a well-optimized website doesn't need any XML Sitemap .if the site has its good internal linking structure then crawlers may identify all site's content but, However, not all sites have like that structure so creating a sitemap is best practice.

How To Create Sitemap For Site Or Blogger:

I will show you an easy and automated way for creating a site-map for your site. 

For Blogger:  if you are using a blogger platform for bogging so it's easy for you to create sitemap

step-1 - just add sitemap.xml at the end of your blog URL

Step-2- upload this sitemap.xml on your search console it can be google search console or bing search console or any other search engine. 

It's quite easy just go to your google search console under the sitemap tab paste it your site URL. and press the "submit" button

For website: sitemap creation I am providing you an automated sitemap generator site. it will generate the structured sitemap for your site within seconds.

step-1: Just go to this site  paste your site's URL  and press "generate sitemap" button

 

After that, you will have to upload this generated sitemap on the search engine's search console.

(2) Robot.txt File 🤖 :

Robot.txt file is one of the major and most important files for every website. 

The main purpose of creating robot.txt is to provide the direction to search engine crawlers that which file and page they have to crawl and which page they don't have permission for crawling.

as you know that robots and Bots visit your site and then index your pages so, If you do not want to crawl some pages and do not wanna give permission to search engines for crawling then, you can block them via robots.txt file.

How to create a Robot.txt file?

You can create well structured Robot.txt by using an automated tool.

Keep in mind robot.txt has the ability to block search engine crawlers. some little wrongly configured files can destroy your site's presence over the search engines.

Step-1:

Go through this site and add your site link after that click on the "create robot.txt" button. Hurrah! it's done.

Now you will have to paste the bellow generated code on your blogger/Site robot.txt files settings 😊

(3) Testing Your Site's Mobile Usability:

A mobile-friendly website always wins the race. According to the study up to 70% of visitors comes from the mobile device. so, it's your job to ensure that your site must be mobile-friendly!

it's become a most essential ranking factor over any search engine.

you must have to make your website or blog fully mobile responsive by installing mobile-friendly themes on your blog in order to rank your site on top ranking of SERP.

To test your site's mobile-friendliness go to this site and paste your site's URL and check is it mobile-friendly or not

This tool will automatically check your site with all mobile responsiveness factors and will give you the final result as you can see in the above-attached screenshot.

You can also check your site status from google search console "mobile usability tab" 

If Google finds any webpage on your site which isn't optimized for mobile, then it will acknowledge you and show error under the error tab.

(4) Webpage Site Speed:

One of the most important SEO factors in today's modern SEO strategies 😨😲. Nowadays webpages must need to load faster because it leaves good experience on users.

According to the recent study if your site doesn't load in 3 seconds then 55% of mobile visitors will leave your site

and immediately leaving the site can cause increasing of bounce rate and it will greatly impact your site's overall SEO😨.

But it doesn't mean that only increasing site speed will boost your ranking. you will have to obey all SEO rules like OFF-Page SEO, On-Page SEO with Proper keyword Researched, AND OPTIMIZED content.

You Can also check your site speed by clicking here. this is google's official web app for checking website'S load speed.

How To Improve Site Speed?

Many methods can be used for increasing the site's speed but as a blogger, I would recommend you to most working techniques for increasing your site speed.

(1) Reduce Your image size: As far as my experience concerns if you reduce your image size that will greatly affect your site speed. 

Use compressed size images it will increase your site's speed, 

For that, you will have to use modern images formats like; JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP that often provide better compression than PNG or JPEG. 

you can convert your images into web format  easily Just goto this site

(2) Purchase Fast Hosting: generally, a slow hosting affects your site speed. so I recommend you to purchase a fast hosting service. saving some money can cost you more in the future.

check out: Fast and Reliable Webhosting in the cheapest price

 

(3) Use minified CSS: many websites using inline and internal CSS but it is very bad practice at the side of SEO. 

you must have to use external CSS files for your site. it will increase your site speed.

for the best practice remove unused CSS from your website.

As you can see in this photo that because of unnecessary CSS my blog knowledge-shout losing his speed up to 1s. 

google page insight also suggests you to where you have to remove your unnecessary CSS. 

for the betterment of your site speed, you must have to deal with CSS as well😊

(4) Keep Clean Your Cache:

We can say cache is a simple kind of temporary memory which hold user and application data in order to make run faster.when you access it next the time.

when the visitor visits your site next time so your browser can easily pic data from cache memory without sending a new HTTP request 

but sometimes it becomes complicated for your browser to manage cache data so for that the alternative solution for a blogger to install a W3 Total Cache plugin  (for WordPress) in order to easily manage the cache.

There can be several ways to increase your site speed you can find it here but major and working ways I have covered.

let's talk about the remaining factors

(5) Add Structured Data Markup:

This is one of the best practice to increase your ranking chance in Google SERP. Structure data markup is simply a piece of code that helps search engine bots to easily understand your site content.

Structure data markup also helps you to add rich snippets on your blog/site like; start rating, FAQ schema, breadcrumbs, and many more.

Try to use the themes, which must be highly data structured and must have these following schemas breadcrumbs list, BlogPosting (if you have a blog site), hatom and etc

you can check out your site structure data markup here

How to Add Rich Snippets Markup Data Statically? 

Are you working on WordPress?

if yes then it's quite easy for you to add Schema just install Yoast SEO Plugin then you will be able to add schema by a single click.

if you have a static website or working with a blogger like me then how will you add these schemas??, FAQ Schema, Sart Rating Schema, Article Schema, and so on, 

for that, you will have to add Schemas manually 😱 

But Don't Worry I am here for solving your problems 😍😍😍 

Just goto this automated schema generator tool and generate your schema. I about to teach you how you can FAQ Schema.

as you can see in this picture it's quite easy to generate FAQ schema just select your option and Add questions. 

After that code will generate automatically.

Now you just have to insert this code where you want to add schema.

you can also create other types of schemas like star rating, blogpost and etc

(6) Clean Up Your Blog From Broken Links:   

Before going to the cleanup procedure of broken links, first of all, we should have an idea about what is actually a broken link? and how it can be cause to de-ranking of your blog?

What are Broken Links?     

It can be known as deadlinks in the language of HTML. broken links are simply kinds of webpages links which leads your users to no longer existing pages or 404 pages (dead pages).

What causes Broken Links?

As a blogger, our best practice is to serve our readers that's why we use internal and external links.

let's suppose if we link our content with external webpages and  if it runs out with the passage of time or might be removed for any reason  then our linked page URL will no longer exist then it would count as a broken link

user clicks that link but he/she wouldn't find that.

Broken links on your site aren't your fault because that page is no more.

but it will affect your site. there can be many causes behind the broken links

let's discuss how broken links can actually heart your SEO?

How Boken Links Destroy Your Ranking 😖 

(1) According to the study, 95% of users will leave from your site if they find any broken link or non-existing page.

when the users bounce back from your site it will result in increases in bounce rate. when the bounce rate increases then ranking will decrease.

because google search engine considers that when a user bounces back from any site it means he hasn't found any useful content that's why he left it,

as we know content is king and Google cares their users so it will penalize your site and will de-rank you.

How to check Borken links?

There are many websites available over the internet which will help you to find broken links on your site. you can check out here free broken links checker site. 

which is also used by me  for checking my website broken links

you can also go for a premium tool (semrush) that will completely analyze your site and also give you 14 days free trial for your first time checking. 

it will also help you to analyze broken links as well as give you the appropriate suggestions about how to fix these links.

How To Fix Broken Links?

After analyzing your broken links it will show you 404 and other links in the form of the table

now you will have to click on "src" and you will redirect on the broken link affected page after that find your broken link and remove it from your site. 

 

(7) Install an SSL  Certificate on Your Site:

I can say this is the biggest ranking factor of advanced SEO.Google also declared SSL secure connection as a ranking factor. 

if you don't have an idea what is SSL certification then don't worry I will clear your all doubts.

SSL certification Or HTTPS secure connection is the same thing. 

The main purpose of installing SSL on your Webhosting is to secure your connection from hackers and scammers. 

when you install SSL connection on your webpage it actives padlock and replace your HTTP(hypertext transfer protocol secure) to HTTPs connection (hypertext transfer protocol secure).  

I know, now you are thinking about how to install this SSL certificate?

so keep one thing in your mind if you are using the Blogger platform then google provides this certificate to you for free.

And,

if you are using WordPress or any other CMS then you will have to pay the appropriate price for that. 

but don't worry now every hosting provider provide SSL in a very cheap price 

And if you are a Pakistani blogger then I have a plus point for you.

you can try inspedium Webhosting it will provide you free SSL certificate and rocket fast hosting at a very cheap price.

(8) www and non-www Issue:

Some of you are aware of about www and non-www concept but some peoples don't. 

let me clear your concept and see which one is good for the SEO perspective a www or a non-www URL.

if we talk technical perspective so it doesn't affect your ranking it's just your personal preference. 

The basic concept of non-www URL is, it is known as the backed domain, and www URL can act as the hostname

There is simply a slight difference between them.

www URL can manage DNS properly and hampering browser cookies when utilizing other domain.

but there is no any technical or SEO perspective benefit on whether to use www URL or non-www URL

Note: But I recommend you to use the www URL structure rather than non-www structure.

(9) Use Canonical Tag To Avoid Duplicate Content:

It is a"Tag" or you can say HTML elements that help search engines to identify which URL is original 

Another Most important technical SEO ranking factor is canonical URLs which deals with handing your site duplication.

let's take an example for the better understanding of canonical tags 

let's suppose,

Whenever you publish a new blog post on your blog after posting you might have to work on your post in order to rank it.

for that, you might share your links and some times will have to publish your content on content distribution platforms like Medium, Reddit and etc. 

So, whenever any search engine crawler visits your medium post and if it accidentally doesn't find any canonical reference so it will be considered as duplicate content of the original site and it will affect your SEO very badly.

This Could Be these kinds of URLs,

• https://knowledgeshout.com/wordpress/seo-plugin/
• https://knowledgeshout.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

to prevent this kind of issues you have to use rel='canonical ' Tag whenever you wanna republish your site content on any other social or content distribution site

it will tell to search engine's crawlers that this is a duplicate URL don't crawl it 

How to add rel="canonical" Tag To Prevent Duplication?

just add rel="canonical" tag on your HTML code like that;

<link src="https://knowledgeshout.com/wordpress/seo-plugin/" rel="canonical"/>

now it will guide search engine bot about the original URL

This is the manual method. But if you are using Worpdress cms for blogging then it's quite simple for you

Just install Yoast Seo Plugin ad setup your canonical tag by just a single click. Here is the complete Yoast SEO plugin Guide 

(10)Fix Error 404 Not Found:

This error is thrown by the server when you are trying to reach a webpage that isn't existing on the server that's why the server Throw 404 error.

let's talk about how a 404 error hearts your SEO?

let's take an example;

when a user tries to access that page which doesn't exist then the user bounces back within 2-3 seconds because the user didn't find any related content. so, when the user bounces back it causes to increase in the bounce rate. that will negatively affect your SEO efforts 

so try to remove these 404 non-existing pages from your site or blog otherwise search engine may slap your ranking.

Note: This is also known as a broken link which e have discussed above already 

(11) Make Your URL's SEO Friendly:

For the better understanding of crawlers as well as users you URL should be short, easy to read for bots as well as users, well maintained, contained your main/primary keyword

Tip: kindly do not do keyword stuffing on your URL. it should be short and well maintained.

Means if your post is about SEO then your URL should be 

"https://www.example.com/what-is-seo" (this is a short and well-maintained URL)

Wrong-Way:

"https://www.example.com/what-is-seo-best-seo-cheaklist-onpage-offpage-seo"   

This is the wrong practice of adding only keywords in your URL. Avoid It 

So that's all about the technical SEO probably I am forgetting some of the points but the major reason and factors which will also be considered as a ranking criteria of search engines I have covered.

As I told you at the starting of the post that I would give you a surprised complete check-list of technical SEO

so, here is it.

Technical Seo Updated Complete CheckList:

(1)  Create your XML sitemap

(2)  Make sure you have a well-structured robot.txt file

(3)  Make sure your site is mobile-friendly

(4)  Make sure your site loads fast

(5)  Add structured Data-makeup

(6)  Remove Broken Links

(7)  Install SSL Security on your site

(8)  use canonical tag

(9)  Fix 4o4 ERROR

(10) Seo friendly URL

(11) Check 302 Temporary Redirection

(12) Add Metadata And meta description ion your site

(13) Meta Tags

(14) Fix breadcrumbs Issue

(15) Alt Tag

(16) Anchor Tag

(17) Minified Your CSS and Javascript Codding

Feel free to share your observations with me in the comments section! Let me know your queries I will feel happy to answer it.