Have you ever searched for something on Google (of course you have) and noticed that some websites show up higher in the search results than others?
That's the effect of proper search engine optimization, also known as SEO.
If your job even remotely relies on a website, you've heard of SEO, know what it stands for, and how it helps your institution appear in the search engine results.
You could say that SEO's "holy grail" is to rank organically on Google's first page for your relevant keywords directly under the listed sponsored posts.
But how do you get to that coveted position directly underneath the sponsored posts? How does your website, page, or blog post receive the push to page one?
You get there by creating high-quality content, using relevant keywords, building links from other reputable sites, and ensuring the site is mobile-friendly.
Again, if your job relies on getting in front of your audiences via the internet and most of your content lives on a website, you have a basic understanding of on-page and off-page SEO.
Let's brush up on these two pull marketing terms real quick:
On-page SEO is content on your website, such as blog posts, news articles, case studies, spotlights, copy, images, tags, etc. You get the gist.
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is everything you do to promote your content outside the confines of your website to bring people to your pages, like earning high-quality backlinks from trusted originations. Other off-page SEO efforts include social media marketing or guest blogging.
Insider tip: Did you know that you earn yourself a high-quality backlink by simply starting a YouTube channel?
It's true!
And better yet, Google owns YouTube, which makes it the preferred website that Google happily pushes up the search results to serve its customers.
On-page and off-page SEO is what people think about when they discuss search engine optimization and ranking high on Google.
But, there's another part of SEO not frequently talked about but just as important as creating relevant, high-quality content people want to read. That part is known as technical SEO.
Technical SEO is all about making sure that your website is set up in a way that makes it easy for search engines to crawl and understand the content on the site.
While we’re writing this blog post, there are approximately 2 billion active web pages on the internet, and 252,000 added each day. To identify relevant pages, Googlebots, also known as, crawlers, use an algorithmic process to find new pages.
Google then tries to understand a page’s content and if considered helpful, index the page into a category that it then draws from when users enter search queries to look for a particular topic.
After you publish your new website or content, it usually takes Google a couple of days to crawl your page and rank it depending on relevancy and the quality of your backlinks, determined by the algorithm, then index your page.
Technical SEO involves making sure that your website is structured in a way that is easily understandable by search engines and that all the necessary technical elements are in place.
There are different types of technical SEO, but the most important are:
Load Time
One important aspect of technical SEO is ensuring that your web pages load quickly. When you visit a website, you probably don't want to wait around for ages while it slowly loads. In fact, studies show that if a website takes more than three seconds to load, most people will simply give up and go elsewhere. This means that having a fast-loading website is absolutely essential if you want to keep your visitors engaged and interested.
Decrease load time by optimizing images, using a content delivery network (CDN), and minifying your code to reduce load times. Search engines place a high priority on page speed, so it's important to make sure your website is as fast as possible.
Security
Technical SEO considerations include optimizing your website's URL structure, making sure your website is secure, using HTTPS. The “S” in HTTPS indicates that a website is secure and trustworthy, which can build trust with users. When users feel safe on a website, they are more likely to stay on the site longer, engage with its content, and return in the future.
Adding security measures to your website also protects against hacking, which can lead to malware infection, data theft, and other security risks that can harm both users and the website's search engine rankings. By securing a website, you reduce the risk of hacking, and the website's SEO is less likely to be negatively impacted by security breaches.
Mobile friendliness
Another important aspect of technical SEO is making sure your website is mobile-friendly. With more and more people using mobile devices to browse the web, it's absolutely essential if you want to reach a wide audience and keep your visitors engaged. In fact, studies have shown that mobile devices account for more than half of all internet traffic, per Statista.
As outlined in the first few paragraphs above, many content creators are familiar with on-page and off-page SEO and do their utmost to create thorough, useful, and well-written content.
However, don’t forget about technical SEO as it is essential to any website's search engine optimization strategy. Optimizing your website's technical aspects can improve your website's visibility in search results and attract more organic traffic to your site.
As with the tree that falls in the forest with no one around, if nobody reads your content, was it even written?
To learn more about how Cascade can help with your technical SEO, read our blog post titled "How Cascade CMS Supports Current SEO Trends," or schedule a discovery call with one of our team members by filling out the form below.
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2023 11:00 AM
