What is Technical SEO?

One of the most overlooked aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) is technical SEO.

If you want your church, school, ministry or business website to rank better in search engines, it’s important to check for and resolve any technical problems that might hurting your search rankings.

In this Search Engine Optimization Frequently Asked Questions (SEO FAQs) video blog, I address the question, What is Technical SEO?

(The article below is a summary of the video, but you’ll get more details and examples if you watch the video.)

What is Technical SEO?

There are many aspects to technical SEO. Let’s talk about 5 of the most important.

1. Readable by Search Engines

First off, you need to ensure that your website can be read by search engines. Some settings or files can block search engines from indexing or listing web pages. To maximize your SEO potential, make sure there is nothing preventing search engines from accessing your content.

If you setup Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for your website, they can tell you if Google and Bing are able to read your website or if there ae issues.

2. Sitemap

A sitemap is like a roadmap for search engines. It guides them through your website, ensuring they don’t miss any important pages. A well-structured sitemap can significantly improve your site’s discoverability.

There are two types of sitemaps. One is an HTML sitemap formatted for human viewers, the second is an XML sitemap which is coded for search engines.  It’s the XML sitemap that is important for SEO.

Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools can help with this too. Both have features where you can submit the URL of your XML sitemap and they will tell you if they can read it and it’s formatted correctly.

3. SSL Certificate

Security matters, not just for your visitors but also for search engines. An SSL certificate encrypts data transfer between your website and its visitors, making it secure. Search engines prioritize secure websites, so having an SSL certificate can give your rankings a boost.

OurChurch.Com not only includes an SSL certificate with all of our hosting services at no extra cost, but we also install and configure it properly for you, something many other website companies don’t do. See SSL Certificates for more details.

4. Page Speed

Nobody likes a slow-loading website, not visitors and definitely not search engines. Search engines aim to provide a great user experience, so they favor fast-loading sites. If your site takes ages to load, you might see a drop in your rankings.

5. Core Web Vitals

Google introduced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure page load times and visual stability during loading. These metrics influence your search rankings, so it’s essential to keep an eye on them.

You can test your website’s Core Web Vitals using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

So, in a nutshell…

Technical SEO is addressing technical issues that prevent your website from being found, indexed, and ranked well by search engines.

Get a Technical SEO Audit and Fixes

At OurChurch.com, when we onboard a new SEO client, our first step is to perform a technical audit of the website. We check for issues like those mentioned above. We also connect the website with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure they can properly crawl and index the site. These technical aspects are the foundation of our SEO strategy, setting the stage for further optimizations.

We also do SEO audits as a stand-alone service, so you can get an evaluation of the SEO of your website and recommendations before committing to any additional services.

And if you need a new website, you can be sure when we do custom website design for your organization, we include best practices for technical SEO.

If you’d like to discuss Christian SEO or website design for your church, school, ministry or business, with one of our SEO experts, we’d love to talk with you!

Fill out the consultation request form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop)!

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