10 Technical SEO Practices From Semalt That Can Help Increase Website Traffic



No matter how search engine algorithms change, technical SEO remains the very foundation without which it is impossible to build an effective promotion strategy.

You can have amazing designs and great expert content. But if in technical terms the site does not meet expectations, then it will still be difficult to get good visibility in the SERP, high traffic and positions.

That is why, first you need to solve those very fundamental problems, and then move on to the rest. Often, working through this is already enough to notice a good effect even in the short term.

Here are 10 tips for technical SEO, the implementation of which in practice will help to increase website traffic and improve the effectiveness of promotion in general.

Optimize your download speed

Speed matters. And the wider the gap between you and your competitors, the more its influence will be in a positive or negative way. Moreover, the problem over time can become complex, since slow sites usually have worse behavioural ones. By fixing this, you will improve both traffic and conversion.

This is one of the most important technical SEO aspects that shouldn't be ignored. You can optimize your download speed by following these steps:
  • optimize images by reducing their size and lowering the quality (almost imperceptibly visually) using an editor or services like TinyPNG;
  • enable caching on the server side - for such purposes, there are plugins for almost all more or less popular CMS;
  • if traffic comes from different countries, you can use CDN like Cloudflare, which also speed up content loading;
  • conduct a technical audit or quick analysis through the Dedicated SEO Dashboard; at the output, you will receive a list of files that slow down the loading and recommendations for optimization. The reason for the slow loading may be in specific scripts or other similar things.
Here are what functions are included in our Dedicated SEO Dashboard:
  • Keywords in TOP. This section shows all the keywords that the website ranks for in Google organic search results, as well as the ranked pages and their SERP positions for a particular keyword.
  • Best Pages. This section reveals the pages that drive the highest share of organic traffic to the website.
  • Competitors. Here you will find the websites that rank in Google TOP 100 for keywords similar to those the analyzed website ranks for.
  • Webpage Analyzer. This tool analyzes the website performance, mobile adaptability, social media presence, on-page SEO, and other essential optimization factors.
  • Plagiarism Checker. This tool helps to find out whether Google regards your web page as a plagiarism-free or non-unique source.
  • Page Speed Analyzer. This tool is used to determine whether the load time of your site meets Google's requirements.
  • Report Center. Here users can create their new reports and white-label templates, as well as set up delivery schedules.

Check meta tags on all pages

If the site was not created from scratch, but belongs to a client who came to you for promotion, this is especially important. On large sites, such as online stores, in relation to the Title and Description meta tags, the following problems are most common:
  • duplicate content, when the same meta tags are used on dozens of pages;
  • low level of optimization or vice versa - overspam with keywords;
  • on some pages, the content of Title and Description may be completely absent.

Fill in the content of the Alt tag

Most SEOs do not do this for two simple reasons - either they forget, or they are just plain lazy. Meanwhile, the possible traffic from image search can be a very good addition to the overall traffic.

This is especially true in commercial niches, where the cost per click in the context goes off scale, and the audience volumes themselves are not so large.

Include relevant keywords in Alt texts, but try to keep them descriptive to avoid overspam.

404 errors and redirects

They can appear due to an accidental change in the URL of the page, as a result of the work of certain scripts, or after the introduction of any improvements on the site.

This often leads to a loss of traffic if the specialist did not notice the problem and did not manage to set up redirects in a timely manner. The link "weight" is lost, and in terms of usability it is also a minus - hardly any of the users will be satisfied that the link on which they clicked gives an error "404". By setting up redirection through 301 redirects, you can avoid these problems.

You can quickly find such links by crawling with crawlers such as NetPeak Spider, Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Website Auditor, designed for the technical site audit.

Optimize your site structure

A competent structure of the site allows you to start receiving conversions from the search after launch, increases the relevance of pages and simplifies promotion. 

The work algorithm is as follows:
  • Collection and clustering of semantics by groups.
  • Their distribution according to the hierarchy and types of pages.
  • Analysis of the target audience and adding additional pages, taking into account its characteristics and commercial factors.
A clear separation and optimization of landing sites based on semantics allows not only to increase the relevance, but also to cover the niche as much as possible. It will not be superfluous to analyze the sites of competitors, including those from related niches, where you can find interesting solutions.

Eliminate indexing issues

Increasing the number of pages and increasing their visibility are two main points that are necessary for sustainable growth in traffic. But problems with indexing pages can negate all your efforts in this direction.

It will not be superfluous to make sure that the pages go into the index normally and nothing bothers them. Sitemap and internal linking make it easy for the robot to detect new pages.

Also, you can use the option to manually add to the index in Google Search Console and the "Re-crawl pages" tool in Yandex.Webmaster.

Check your link profile

A good website link profile is often the main growth engine, as even new pages quickly rank well on trust resources. But over time, "toxic" links may appear, which, on the contrary, can harm search rankings.

For example, one of the unscrupulous competitors spammed the site with direct anchors for low-quality donors, or inexperienced SEOs were involved in the promotion, who made a similar mistake. Google is especially sensitive to this.

If after analyzing the link profile you see something like this, you can use the Google Disavow Tool to "dismiss" low-quality links, and the search engine will simply stop taking them into account when ranking:


Reject links on Google

Structure the content of your pages

A competent structure increases the relevance of the page, makes it easier for search robots to understand and has a positive effect on behavioural ones, as users will spend more time on such a page.

Also, this increases the likelihood of the page getting into the advanced results on request, which can lead to an increase in traffic at times.

In addition to the visual markup of the structure, markup with structured data (schema.org) works very well for some types of sites, which allows for more attractive and informative snippets.

Eliminate the "cannibalization" of semantics

"Cannibalization" means a situation when there are several pages on the site at once on the same topic, or focused on covering the same group of keys. As a result, the search engine will, at best, rank well only one of them in the SERP, and at worst, it will lower the positions of all of them together.

To avoid this, in the process of creating a website or conducting an audit, you need to make sure that the following recommendations are followed:
  • for each important keyword or group of queries, there should be only one page;
  • the title and description of each page must be unique within the site;
  • if such an intersection is observed, then the pages need to be reworked (for example, for low frequencies), combined into one, or deleted (for the less valuable ones).

Focus on mobile

Ideally, each site should use a responsive design to provide the best experience for smartphone users. But, of course, this is still far from reality, since many projects have been redesigned for a long time, and they simply do not meet the new search requirements.

You can check the display of your site on mobile using services such as Mobile-Friendly Test from Google. Also, make sure that the content of the mobile version does not differ from the desktop version, and that all functionality is fully operational.

Outcomes

The technical SEO job is not limited to the things listed above. But the study of these particular points can provide relatively quick results with a minimum investment of time and budget for implementation.

Proper internal website optimization can hide a great potential for traffic growth, and we hope that our article will help you take full advantage of this opportunity.