Technical SEO: 5 Powerful Fixes for Site Performance

Technical SEO helps search engines find, understand, and rank your website. Even if your content is great, poor technical SEO can prevent people from discovering your site.

If you’re a small business owner, optimising your website’s technical SEO performance can lead to faster loading times, higher search rankings, and more visitors. A well-optimized website ensures customers can easily find your business online.

In this guide, we’ll explore five simple fixes that can significantly improve your website’s performance and search engine rankings.

1. Improve Your Website’s Speed

A slow website frustrates visitors. If your pages take too long to load, people may leave before they even see your content. Google also considers page speed when ranking websites, so a slow site can harm your technical SEO.

How to Speed Up Your Website

Here are some quick ways to boost site speed:

• Optimize images: Large images slow down websites. Use tools like TinyPNG or ShortPixel to compress them without losing quality.
• Enable browser caching: This allows returning visitors to load your pages faster by storing some website data on their devices.
• Reduce unnecessary elements: Minimize plugins, scripts, and heavy fonts that can slow down your site.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs store your site’s content on multiple servers worldwide, ensuring faster loading times for users everywhere.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML: Removing unnecessary code can improve load speed.

How to Test and Monitor Speed

Check your website’s speed using tools like:

• Google PageSpeed Insights (provides suggestions for improvement)
• GTmetrix (offers detailed reports on performance issues)
• Lighthouse (a built-in Chrome tool for diagnosing page speed problems)

A fast-loading site keeps visitors engaged and boosts search rankings.

2. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Most internet users browse on their phones, so your website must work well on mobile devices. Google also prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in search rankings. Poor mobile usability can lead to higher bounce rates and lost customers.

How to Optimize for Mobile

Ensure your site is mobile-friendly by:

• Using a responsive design: This automatically adjusts your site’s layout to fit different screen sizes.
• Scaling images and text: Make sure images and text are appropriately sized for mobile screens to prevent readability issues.
• Optimizing buttons and links: Buttons should be large enough to tap easily, and links should have enough spacing to avoid accidental clicks.
• Eliminating intrusive pop-ups: Google penalizes sites that use pop-ups that block content on mobile devices.
• Testing with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: This tool helps identify any mobile usability issues that need fixing.

Why Mobile-Friendliness Matters

A mobile-friendly site enhances the user experience, reduces bounce rates, and improves search rankings, making it a crucial part of technical SEO.

3. Use Structured Data to Enhance Search Visibility

Structured data, also called schema markup, helps search engines understand your content better. It can also make your search listings more attractive by displaying rich snippets like star ratings, product details, and event dates.

Benefits of Structured Data

Common types of structured data include:

• Reviews (displays star ratings in search results)
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (adds expandable questions in search listings)
• Product details (shows product prices and availability)
• Events (highlights dates, locations, and ticket information)

How to Implement Structured Data

To add structured data to your site:

• Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the correct schema markup.
• Test your markup with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure there are no errors.
• Implement the schema markup in your website’s HTML or use a plugin if you’re using WordPress.

Adding structured data makes your site more engaging in search results, leading to higher click-through rates and better rankings.

4. Fix Broken Links and Improve Navigation

Broken links negatively impact the user experience and waste your website’s crawl budget—the number of pages Google will check on your site. Fixing these issues can help search engines and visitors navigate your site more effectively.

How to Identify and Fix Broken Links

To keep your links in check:

• Scan for broken links using tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs. If you find any, either remove them or set up 301 redirects to relevant pages.
• Optimize your robots.txt file to prevent search engines from crawling unimportant pages, such as admin pages or duplicate content.
• Improve internal linking by connecting related pages. This helps users and search engines navigate your site more efficiently.

Internal Linking Best Practices

• Link to important pages from high-traffic pages.
• Use descriptive anchor text.
• Avoid excessive linking to prevent clutter.

A well-structured website with clean, working links enhances technical SEO and improves the user experience.

5. Secure Your Website with HTTPS

Website security is essential for both visitors and search engines. If your site isn’t secure, it may rank lower on Google and lose user trust.

Why HTTPS Matters

• Encrypts data: Protects user information from hackers.
• Improves trust: Visitors feel safer browsing a secure site.
• Boosts SEO: Google favors HTTPS sites over HTTP sites.

How to Secure Your Website

To enhance security:

• Use HTTPS instead of HTTP: HTTPS encrypts data, making your website safer for visitors.
• Get an SSL certificate: Most hosting providers offer free SSL certificates, which you can activate easily.
• Check for mixed content errors: If some site elements still load over HTTP, they can make your website less secure. Use Why No Padlock or your browser’s developer tools to detect and fix these errors.
• Keep software updated: Regularly update your website’s CMS, plugins, and security patches to protect against cyber threats.
• Enable security plugins: If using WordPress, consider plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri for extra protection.

A secure website not only improves technical SEO but also builds trust with visitors and protects sensitive information.

Conclusion

Technical SEO is essential for ensuring your website performs well and ranks higher in search results. By focusing on speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data, link management, and security, you can create a strong online presence.

Key Takeaways:

• A fast-loading site keeps users engaged and ranks better in search engines.
• A mobile-friendly design ensures all users have a smooth experience.
• Structured data makes search listings more appealing.
• Fixing broken links improves site navigation and usability.
• HTTPS security builds trust and protects your site.

SEO isn’t a one-time fix—it requires ongoing updates and maintenance to stay ahead of the competition. Start applying these changes today and watch your website’s performance improve!