Technical SEO assesses the back end of your site.

When we look at the technical SEO elements of your site, we look at things like page speed and mobile-friendliness as well as status codes, XML sitemaps, and accessibility. We make sure all of these elements are implemented according to best practices so that the proper URLs are being indexed within search results.

• Status codes. Status codes tell a bot what is occurring with the webpage, whether it’s permanently gone (404), permanently moved (301), a server error (500s), or a successful request (200). It’s important that each page of your site is communicating the proper status codes.
• XML sitemap. An XML sitemap is a list of all indexable URLs on your site that can rank in search engine results. This file should only contain URLs that respond with a 200 status code, be submitted in Google Search Console, and dynamically update at a frequency relevant to the site.
• URL handling. Duplicate URLs can hurt your rank. We work with the development team to make sure you avoid multiple variations of a URL and ensure site parameters are set up in accordance with best practices so you don’t waste search engine crawl allotment.
• Canonical tags. Canonical tags help consolidate ranking signal to search engines. In most cases, canonical tags are self-referencing, but it’s very important these are implemented accurately across your site to ensure the canonical URL gets the intended authority.
• Pagination. Pagination helps consolidate ranking signal to search engines. Pagination indicates a relationship across a series of separate pages, which search engine bots will see as a signal to consolidate all of the individual pages into one and rank them appropriately.
• Accessibility. Search engines like Google are getting really good at crawling JavaScript, but it’s not a guarantee. If JavaScript and other styling elements were turned off, all site content should still be available and render correctly.

Structured Data

Structured data is markup used specifically by Google bots to understand information about something within a webpage and then visualize it based on that understanding. Rich snippets and additional search engine result page (SERP) features are a result of structured data markup. This is the latest way bots are able to understand more about web pages and classify and visualize elements of those pages within SERPs. We make sure the structured data markup across your site is implemented according to Google’s type-specific guidelines.

Page Speed & Mobile Friendliness

Page speed refers to how quickly a web page (DOM) downloads in order to appear to users. It’s one of the top ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, impacting user experience and search engine crawl rate. Neither search engine bots nor users want to wait for a page to load and will leave a page if it’s taking too long, which results in a bounce. Ideally, page speed should be just under a few seconds, but this will differ by device, internet speed, and how quickly website elements load to users and bots. We work with the development team to focus on combining files, minifying wherever possible, and lazy loading images to help improve page speed.

Page speed plays a large part in successfully ranking within mobile SERPs. With more than 70 percent of Google’s traffic coming from mobile, they now use a mobile-first index to rank sites. This means your website is no longer indexed based on the desktop version but rather on the mobile experience. One way to enhance the mobile experience is to have a responsive site. This means the site, including images, text, and icons, scales appropriately to suit the device being used.

International & Multilingual Domains

There are many ways to set up international sites, such as subfolders, ccTLDs, or subdomains. Each has pros and cons related to cost, the strength of signals to search engines, and maintenance needs. Keeping your business capabilities and users top of mind, we help you sort through the technicalities of setting up an international domain and set your site up for success according to best practices.