Technical SEO involves improving the system of a website to ensure it receives a fair evaluation from search engines. This aspect of SEO focuses on the website’s underlying system and infrastructure, providing foundational support for the site.

In contrast, the importance of Content SEO is often emphasized in SEO strategies today. However, no matter how excellent the content is, if search engines do not correctly recognize the information on the site, it may not be properly evaluated. Technical SEO provides the essential groundwork that allows Content SEO to truly shine.

The Tokyo SEO Maker, a specialist SEO media, explains that Technical SEO is a crucial strategy necessary for the operation of a website. Implementing the correct techniques requires advanced expertise. If it’s challenging to execute these strategies in-house, consider consulting an SEO company.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the strategy to ensure that a website’s information is correctly understood by search engines. It involves improving the design and system of the site and often requires specialized knowledge in programming. Typically, this is the responsibility of web engineers.

Understanding the Difference with Content 

Technical SEO and Content SEO differ in various ways, such as their objectives and the knowledge required for their implementation. Here are the distinctions.

While Content SEO has been emphasized nowadays, Technical SEO is crucial as it supports the foundation of a website. 

If even highly valuable content is provided, neglecting Technical SEO may prevent search engines from recognizing the value and existence of the content. In such cases, the website may not be evaluated correctly. Thus, Technical SEO can be considered not just a strategy to improve search rankings but also to eliminate factors that could lower them.

Related Article: What is Content SEO?

Types of SEO Measures

Technical SEO is one of the methods within SEO. There are several approaches to SEO.

Related Article: What are SEO Measures?

Benefits and Considerations of Technical SEO

Technical SEO offers the following benefits.

Benefit: High Effectiveness of Measures

However, it requires advanced expertise in programming and web-related knowledge. As a result, it can be costly.

Note: Requires Advanced Knowledge and Can Be Costly

Benefit: High Effectiveness of Measures

Implementing technical SEO can resolve issues faced by a website. This improves the site’s SEO rating and can lead to significant results.

For example, common issues a website might face include the following.

-Web pages not being crawled (discovered) by search engines

-Web pages not being indexed (registered) by search engines

-Significantly low page ratings within the website

Unless these issues are resolved, the website will continue to receive little to no traffic from search engines. Often, such issues are caused by problems within the website’s system or functions. In many cases, minor coding errors are the root cause. By addressing these minor issues, a website can become significantly more indexable.

Key Considerations 

Technical SEO requires advanced knowledge about programming and web technologies, which can make it costly. If your company does not have in-house engineers, you may need to outsource this task to an SEO firm. Technical SEO can be more expensive than content SEO depending on the specifics of the required tasks, posing a risk of high costs.

Related Article: Costs Associated with SEO Measures

Impacts of Technical SEO

Executing technical SEO correctly yields three significant SEO impacts.

Firstly, technical SEO addresses the following site issues.

Issue 1: Web pages not being crawled by search engines.

Issue 2: Web pages not being indexed by search engines.

Issue 3: Low page evaluations within the website.

The respective solutions aim to achieve the following effects.

Effect 1: Promote crawler visits.

Effect 2: Enhance indexing.

Effect 3: Ensure web page quality.

Effect 1: Promote Crawler Visits

A crawler, also known as a spider or robot, is a tool search engines use to navigate the web, collecting information about websites and web pages.

Related Article: What is a Crawler?

When a crawler recognizes web page information, it initiates the process for the search engine to consider whether to index that page in its database. In essence, if a crawler does not recognize a page, it will never appear in the search engine results.

Improvements must be made to ensure the website is easy for crawlers to navigate. Techniques to achieve this include;

• Optimizing directory structures.
• Optimizing internal links.
• Addressing crawl errors.
• Submitting site maps.
• Adding directives in the robots.txt file.

Related Article: How to Request Google to Crawl Your Site – Methods and Application

Optimizing Directory Structures

Improving the clarity of the directory structure increases the frequency of crawler visits.

The directory structure determines the framework for page placement within the site. Specifically, it involves the arrangement of folders on the server.

Related Article: What is a Directory Structure?

In the image above, “Category A” and “Category B” correspond to directories (folders). The “Category A” folder would contain files (HTML files and image data) that are highly relevant to the theme of “Category A”.

By organizing the directory structure, you make it easier for crawlers to navigate the entire site.

Optimizing Internal Links

By properly setting up internal links within a website, you make it easier for crawlers to navigate.

Internal links are links that point to other pages within the same website. Originally, the term “web” refers to a spider’s web, which metaphorically represents a vast network of interconnected information. Therefore, a website should fundamentally form a web-like network through effective use of links.

Related Article: What are Internal Links?

By strengthening the relationships between pages within the site, crawlers can navigate more efficiently.

Addressing Crawl Errors 

Improving crawl errors enhances the efficiency of crawler navigation.

Crawl errors occur when crawlers are unable to properly navigate a website or page.

Related Article: How to Address Crawl Errors

Common causes of crawl errors include:

• Broken links
• Status errors

The former occurs when a non-existent page URL is linked, usually due to typos in the URL or links to pages that have been deleted. The latter occurs when links to pages that are not accessible are set.

To resolve this, identify the pages causing crawl errors and correct their URLs. Crawl errors can be identified using tools like Google Search Console.

Related Article: What is Google Search Console? An Introduction and Guide

Submitting Sitemaps 

Submitting your website’s sitemap to Google can encourage crawler visits.

The sitemap referred to here is the XML sitemap (sitemap.xml). An XML sitemap is a file in XML format that lists all the pages on a website. By creating and submitting an XML sitemap, you inform search engines about the presence and structure of your website.

Creating an XML sitemap can be done manually or with the use of tools. For more details, see the article below.

Related Article: What is a Sitemap? Explanation of Creation Methods and SEO Benefits

Once you have prepared an XML sitemap, submit it through Google Search Console.

Related Article: What is Google Search Console? An Introduction and Guide

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Include Instructions in robots.txtTop of Form

Using a robots.txt file allows you to control crawler activities on your website. Robots.txt is a text file used to give instructions to crawlers. It is commonly used in scenarios where you do not want certain pages to be indexed, such as;

• When setting up pages exclusive to members
• When operating a test site for debugging purposes

Specifically, you can use robots.txt to issue instructions like;

• Denying crawl requests for a site URL
• Denying crawl requests for specific page URLs
• Denying crawl requests for image or video URLs
• Submitting an XML sitemap

For detailed writing and setting instructions, refer to the following page.

Related Article: What is robots.txt? Explaining Its Purpose and How to Write It

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Effect 2: Facilitating Indexing 

Here, indexing refers to the registration of web pages by a search engine.

Related Article: What is indexing?

Web pages are displayed in search results only after they are indexed by search engines. Thus, acquiring search traffic is contingent upon being indexed. Methods to encourage indexing include;

• Setting URL normalization
• Improving page loading speed
• Implementing mobile responsiveness
• Installing structured data

Setting URL Normalization 

Setting URL normalization can make it easier to get indexed. URL normalization involves specifying which page URL should be indexed among duplicate pages within a site.

Typically, multiple URLs can be generated for a single page within a website. When multiple URLs are generated, search engines may struggle to decide which URL should be indexed. Therefore, URL normalization is necessary in cases such as;

• Presence or absence of a host (www)
• Presence or absence of URL parameters
• SSL presence (https)
• Presence or absence of a trailing slash (/)

For more details about URL structures, please refer to the following page.

Related Article: What is a URL?

There are primarily two methods of URL normalization.

• Setting redirects
• Using canonical tags

The former involves forcibly redirecting visitors to another page within the site, while the latter is a technique used to indicate to search engines which page URL should be normalized. Specific settings for each are discussed in the following articles

Related Article: Methods for Domain and URL Normalization

Improving page load speeds can facilitate indexing. Google’s search engine has rules in place to lower the ratings of pages that load extremely slowly. Therefore, by increasing the page load speed, you can improve the negative ratings and make the page more likely to be indexed.

Increase Page Loading Speed

Increasing page loading speed can promote indexing. Google’s search engine has a rule that lowers the ranking of extremely slow-loading pages. By improving page loading speed, you can improve negative evaluations and make your pages more indexable.

Methods for improving page load speed include;

• Reducing the size of content
• Organizing unnecessary program code
• Maintaining servers

Slow page load times can be caused by factors such as the amount of content on the page, unnecessary program execution, and server specifications. Improving these aspects can increase site speed. For more details, please refer to the following page.

Related Article: What is Site Speed? Explaining Page Load Speed with Tools and Improvement Methods

Making Web Pages Mobile-Friendly 

Making web pages mobile-friendly also makes them easier to index.

Google’s current search engine uses an algorithm called Mobile First Index (MFI), which prioritizes indexing mobile pages over desktop pages.

Related Article: What is Mobile First Index?

Incorporating mobile-friendliness into web pages makes them easier to index, referred to as being “mobile-friendly.” Check if your company’s pages are mobile-friendly, and if not, measures should be taken to address this.

Related Article: What is Mobile SEO? Explaining Mobile SEO Strategies and How to Check for Mobile Friendliness

Installing Structured Data

Installing structured data on your website can increase the likelihood of being indexed. Structured data is designed to communicate information about your website accurately to search engines.

Related Article: What is Structured Data?

For example, consider the term “Tokyo SEO Maker” (the name of this website). However, suppose Google’s search engine doesn’t know that “Tokyo SEO Maker” is the name of a website. Using structured data helps the search engine recognize that “Tokyo SEO Maker” refers to the website’s name.

Methods to install structured data include

• Writing it directly into HTML
• Using structured data markup helper tools

Using the latter tool can make it relatively easy to create structured data.

Tool URL: Structured Data Markup Helper Tool

Detailed instructions on how to use the structured data markup helper tool are provided in the following article

Related Article: What is the Structured Data Testing Tool? Explaining the Tool’s Usage and Its Relation to SEO

Effect 3: Ensuring Web Page QualityTop of Form

By ensuring the quality of web pages, you can facilitate their crawling and indexing by search engines. In technical SEO, the focus is less on “enhancing content quality” and more on “eliminating factors that degrade content quality.” This overlaps with content SEO in part, but specifically involves techniques such as;

-Revising HTML Tags

-Addressing Duplicate Pages

Revising HTML Tags

From a technical SEO perspective, improving content quality might involve revising HTML tags.

Related Article: What Are HTML Tags?

HTML tags are used to display web pages and are part of the markup language. Properly placing these tags ensures that pages display correctly and information is accurately conveyed to search engines. It’s important to review whether the following HTML tags are used appropriately.

Addressing Duplicate Pages 

Duplicate content refers to the presence of identical content across multiple pages within a website, which can confuse search engines.

Related Article: What Is Duplicate Content?

The following methods can be used to eliminate duplicate content.

As outlined above, the effects vary depending on the method used to address duplicate content. The choice of method should be based on the role of the page. For example, consider the following characteristics of a page:

It causes duplication within the site, but both pages positively impact conversions.

In such case, they both need to be preserved. Thus, methods like “cros-linking,” “canonical settings,” or “noindex settings” are appropriate. Conversely, “redirects” or “page deletion” could negatively impact conversions and should be used with caution.

Costs of Technical SEO

If your company lacks personnel skilled in technical SEO, you may need to hire an SEO agency. The cost for these services can vary as shown below.

Technical SEO tends to be more expensive than content SEO due to its high level of technicality. However, costs can vary based on the SEO agency you choose, the specific services you require, and the size of your site. It’s advisable to get quotes from multiple SEO agencies and compare them.

Related Article: Costs of SEO Services

Tools for Technical SEO 

In technical SEO, you’ll likely use SEO tools, many of which are provided for free by Google. Start with the following tools.

• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics

Related Article: Top 40 SEO Tools Recommended!

Google Search Console 

Google Search Console is an SEO tool for communicating with Google Search Engine. For instance, it allows you to

• View improvements and notifications from Google.
• Check your site’s index status.
• Verify whether structured data is implemented.
• Submit XML sitemaps.
• Disavow backlinks.

These are just some examples of how the tool can be used. It’s essential not just for site creation but also for identifying areas needing improvement during site updates.

Tool Name: Google Search Console 

Related Article: How to Use Google Search Console

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Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is an SEO tool for analyzing website traffic. By implementing Google Analytics, you can examine the following types of data.

• Number of visits
• Number of users
• User demographics
• Users’ access environments
• User behavior
• Traffic sources
• Conversion rates (if set up)

Analyzing this data can help identify challenges your site may be facing. For example, if it turns out that the majority of traffic comes from mobile devices, enhancing mobile responsiveness to improve usability for mobile users can make your website more effective.

Tool Name: Google Analytics
Related Article: How to Use Google Analytics 4

Frequently Asked Questions about Technical SEOTop of Form

Here are some frequently asked questions about technical SEO.

Q: What effects can technical SEO have?

A: By implementing technical SEO, your website’s information becomes more comprehensible to search engines, making it easier for your site to receive a proper SEO evaluation.

Q: Should I implement technical SEO?

A: Technical SEO is essential for SEO efforts. 

It focuses on improving the systemic aspects that support your website’s foundation, making it a prerequisite rather than an option. Properly building this foundation enhances the performance of content SEO.

Q: What’s the difference between technical SEO and internal SEO measures?

A: Technical SEO is part of internal SEO measures. 

Generally, SEO strategies are divided into internal and external measures, where internal is further split into content SEO and technical SEO. Technical SEO plays a critical role in communicating site information to search engines.

Related Article: What are Internal SEO Measures?

Q: Can SEO beginners handle technical SEO?

A: If you are willing to learn and can dedicate time, you can implement basic measures yourself. However, it requires specialized knowledge, so its execution may depend on the individual. Nowadays, support tools like WordPress enhance website management. Online searches can guide you on how to use these tools and what’s required for the tasks. Thus, with some research skills and time, even beginners can perform basic actions.

Q: Which SEO company should I outsource technical SEO to?

A: The best SEO company for you depends on your specific needs and company culture. Generally, large SEO firms tend to match well with large-scale sites, and mid-tier SEO companies are often better suited for smaller, medium-sized business sites.

For more detailed guidance on choosing an SEO company, please refer to the following article

Related Article: Introduction to SEO Companies by Objective! Includes Tips and Cautions for Choosing the Right One

Summary:

Technical SEO is about communicating your website’s information to search engines, aiming to facilitate crawling and indexing. It focuses more on preventing your site’s evaluation from dropping rather than improving it. By securing site quality through technical SEO, content SEO can then fully deliver its potential. If you’re struggling with getting indexed, consider implementing technical SEO to review and improve your site’s systemic aspects.

Author Profile

Mr. Takeshi Amano, CEO of Admano Co., Ltd.

Mr. Takeshi Amano is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at Nihon University. With 12 years of experience working in the advertising agency industry, he discovered SEO and began his research during the early days of SEO. He self-taught and conducted experiments and verifications on over 100 websites. Using this expertise, he founded Admano Co., Ltd., which is currently in its 11th year of operation. Mr. Amano handles sales, SEO consulting, web analytics (holding the Google Analytics Individual Qualification certification), coding, and website development. The company has successfully managed SEO strategies for over 2000 websites to date.

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