Welcome back again to another article of this multipart series on How to Rank Higher On Google. This is part 5 of this multipart series. In this part we will talk about Technical SEO & Site Performance. In the first part, we talked about On-Page SEO. Moreover, in the second part, we talked about Off-Page SEO. Similarly, in the third part we talked about Keyword Research & Optimization. Previously, in the fourth part, we talked about Creating Content. If you have not read those parts, just click on any of those parts to go and read them.
Without wasting any more time, lets us go straight to the topic of today’s part; Technical SEO & Site Performance.
Similarly, read step #3 here.
Also read step #4 here.
Step #5. Technical SEO & Site Performance.
Technical SEO ensures that your website is optimized for search engines to crawl, index, and rank efficiently. Even the best content won’t rank if your site has technical issues affecting performance. The technical seo is very important. Hence you cannot afford to ignore it. A well optimized website will be crawled properly by google bots.
In addition to that, if your website is loading fast, it will be easier for google to crawl your website. Actually, the issue with performance is not even mainly aimed at google crawling but users. The reason why your site performance matters is the user experience. Google considers your website performance when it comes to ranking. Sites that are very slow rank lower than those that are fast.
Now lets go straight into all the things you need to do to optimize your website for technical SEO and site performance.
1. Mobile Optimization & Responsive Design.
These days, most people access internet through smartphones. Actually computer users on the internet are a minority. Thus, if you ignore the mobile users, you are ignoring internet majority. If your pages do not load well nor display well on mobile phones, then google will not rank you for it. Since Google uses mobile-first indexing, your site must be mobile-friendly to rank well.
Best Practices for Mobile Optimization:
- ✅ Use a Responsive Design. Your website theme or design must load well on smartphones.
- ✅ Optimize Font Sizes & Buttons. Use font types and size that displays well on mobile phones. Also make sure that the font loads fast.
- ✅ Avoid Intrusive Pop-Ups. Google does not like websites that use popups that block content.
- ✅ Test with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool. Use tools like lighthouse to test your pages mobile-friendliness.
2. Site Speed & Core Web Vitals.
Site speed is a major ranking factor. This is because slow websites increase bounce rates. When someone clicks on a link and it starts loading slow, then he/she will definitely leave and go to another link. This is called a bounce. The rate of the people who click and actually wait for it to load vs those who do not wait, is considered as the bounce rate. The higher your bounce rate, the lower will google rank your website. Hence you should always thrive to lower your bounce rate. This can be made very easy by working on site speed and core web vitals.
What are Core Web Vitals:
Core web vitals are Google’s Page Experience Signals. Some of them include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Measures how fast the main content loads (should be under 2.5s).
- First Input Delay (FID). Measures interactivity (should be under 100ms).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Measures visual stability (should be low).
How to Improve Site Speed:
Now that you understand site speed is important, its time to talk about how to increase the speed. Some of the things you can talk about to improve your site speed are:
- ✅ Use a Fast Hosting Provider. e.g., Cloudways and SiteGround.
- ✅ Compress Images. Use TinyPNG, WebP format.
- ✅ Enable Browser Caching & Lazy Loading.
- ✅ Minify CSS, JavaScript & HTML. Use plugins like WP Rocket, Autoptimize.
- ✅ Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Some CDNs include Cloudflare, BunnyCDN.
3. Schema Markup for Rich Results.
Schema markup helps search engines understand your content better. It can increase click-through rates (CTR). For example, if you have job postings on your website, you need to use the schema markup to let google know it. Similarly, if you post news on your website, you need to do the same too. This also applies to websites that post products such as eCommerce. You can actually get a lot of free traffic from google if you use this properly.
Common Schema Types for SEO:
- ✅ Article Schema. For blogs and news sites.
- ✅ FAQ Schema. For frequently asked questions.
- ✅ Product Schema. For eCommerce sites.
- ✅ Review Schema. For star ratings in search results.
Conclusion.
This forms the section a of the fifth part of this multipart series. Tomorrow we will continue with the rest of this part.
