Technical SEO: Future of SEO

Technical SEO is the facilitation of search engines to index and crawl your website. Major factors include website architecture, webpage speed, website SERPs appearance through structure data markups, mobile optimization, readability of your website and more.

But how does making your site more crawl friendly, affect your site’s visibility? You might ask. The simple answer is that having a site that is sound from the Technical SEO point of view, can drastically improve your site’s standing in the Google SERPS. With each passing year new techniques and technologies are integrated in popular search engines to streamline the search process and more efficiently connect users to their desired online services. Some of the most important parts of a Technical SEO have been redefined as follows:

Determine the Direction of your Website:

Like an effective mission statement for a company and the about page of a website, an efficient website needs to be clearly defined through structured data markups. It’s objectives and the type of results that are expected in a search query.

Think creatively and always consider the users’ point of view. When pondering over the ideal developmental balance it is preferable to cover the following questions:

• Can people mention this feature in conversions?
• Does this feature provide ease of access to the user?
• What value does it provide to my task?
• Will this affect the user’s experience and what is the wow factor?

“Is this route feasible and efficient in the long run?”

Benchmark the User Experience:

Bounce and conversion rates are indicative statistics that forecast the success of your UX in attracting and retaining visitors. Bounce rates are indicative of your websites visual appeal and attractiveness whilst conversion rates indicate a comfortable sitemap and strategically placed call to action buttons that help guide customers through that conversion funnel.

Note: For an in-depth review of marketing on different social media check-out the”Increase Sales through Social Media” series.

Technical SEO — UI and Website Design:

• Mobile-friendliness:
• Responsive Design:
• Since April 21st 2015, Google has started mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in determining the search results. What this means is that sites which are not optimized for search results not only lose mobile traffic but also rank lower amongst pc users.
• Popular mobile app:
• A dedicated mobile application that is ranked higher on the play store equals to higher ratings in the search results.
• Perceived Value:
• A beautiful and visually appealing design helps establish the website’s credibility and provides a boost to site ranking. One of the most important things is goodwill and an efficient front-end will help you achieve higher rankings.
• Readability:
• Readable design and content that is easily comprehensible is bound to increase traffic to your site as more people heed to the call. The appropriate font of the appropriate size does wonders for your SEO campaign.
• Site speed:
• A slow website can harm your SEO in two ways; site speed is one of Goggle’s ranking factors, since 2010, TTFB (or Time to First Byte) highly correlates with rankings.
• Secondly, 40% of people close a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. In a worst case scenario, they will click on the ‘back’ button and choose a different search result, which is one of the most important signs that a user isn’t satisfied.

When Google Panda Don’t Like Your Content

Functional Overhauls:

• Custom HTTP Header Code error pages
• The HTTP error page is often the last page your visitor will visit. It is a good practice to efficiently and politely offer them the ability to redirect back to their intended link so they can find their way to the required resource. A custom error page with the same colors, fonts and layouts assures the visitors that they are still on your site and reflects the effort and consideration put in providing the best possible user interface.
• Avoid cloaking in pages.
• Cloaking is showing one version of a page to users, but having a different version crawled by search engines. This is a deceptive practice and is often recognized by search engines, keen to provide the best user interface to visitors, and results in penalties to the website. The rule of thumb is all hidden text, links or any other form of cloaking should be avoided.
• Use redirects properly
• There is a multitude of misspelled or incorrect link referrals and not all of those visitors appreciate being redirected to your site’s homepage, a good practice is to use a one for one redirect method where individual requests for obsolete addresses are redirected to their new locations. It is a professionally recommended and an added benefit is that it helps pass the essential link juice to the deep pages within your site that are usually long tail and rarely visited.
• IP Detection / Redirection
• Some websites use IP detection to determine the user’s country or place of origin and redirect them to the regional version of the website. The user might not mind it even though it is not always 100% accurate, but usually it is an added benefit that is meant to facilitate the user experience. However, for the search engine crawlers, this can be a quite a hindrance since most of them crawl from a US based IP address, what this means is that they may never see a significant portion of your website that was based in countries beside the United States.
• Engage and Inspire
• One of the key aspects of a technical SEO is retaining customers through interactivity and individual appeal. Well maintained and original blogs as a content marketing strategy will keep the followers intrigued and interested through future updates and key moments during the company’s gradual chrysalis.
• Thanks to Pyxel Web Design Company

http://www.pyxel.co.uk/blog/seo/technical-seo-future-of-seo/