BlogDagmar 22.11.2024

Technical SEO – 10 stumbling blocks that you can remove to increase sales on your website

Without a solid foundation of technical search engine optimization, even the best website content will not be found. Dagmar’s Technical SEO Specialist Sampo Saukko listed a number of technical tips to ensure that your site is discoverable, improve your site’s search engine rankings, increase traffic and boost sales.

10 technical SEO stumbling blocks, don’t forget to take note of these

1. Speed optimization: make sure your site is fast enough

With Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics at the latest, site speed has become a crucial aspect of technical search engine optimization. To improve speed, it is necessary to utilise modern caching practices and avoid unnecessary code, as well as optimize image sizes and modernize their file formats.

We use a variety of paid tools to analyze site speed, but there are also free and easy ways to monitor site performance yourself. E.g. Google Search Console (Core Web Vitals section) and Yellow Lab Tools.

2. User experience: mobile optimisation, usability and accessibility

Today, more and more people use online services on mobile devices, so a website needs to work seamlessly even on small screens. If a site is not carefully optimized for mobile devices, it will lead to a poorer user experience and thus lower your site’s ranking in search results.

Usability and accessibility play an increasingly important role in a site’s search engine ranking anyway. Make sure that the site is responsive, clear, easy to use and fast also on mobile devices.

3. Security and data protection: shortcomings in website security

Search engines value the security of a site. The use of HTTPS security is a necessity in today’s web service.

Also, make sure that the users of your website are asked for the permissions required by law for the possible collection of data, and that you do not collect information about users that may not be collected.

Collecting false information and leaking it can, in addition to reduced search engine ranking, lead to serious consequences.

4. Cluttered site structure

A clear and logical site structure helps both users and search engines navigate your site. A poorly designed site structure can make it harder to find and crawl content, which in turn negatively affects your visibility in search results.

5. Duplicate content

Duplicate content confuses search engines and can reduce your site’s rankings. Use canonical tags to indicate canonical content and avoid repeating the same content on different pages. If the same content is found behind two different URLs, it is detrimental to your search engine visibility.

6. Incomplete metadata

The titles and meta descriptions of your pages are key to people deciding whether or not to click on a search result, as search engines elevate these elements to search results. Google also recommends that you write unique meta descriptions for each page. They are more likely to appear in search results, but well-crafted metadata has a particularly positive impact on the click-through rate of search results.

Try to keep your meta title under 60 characters and your meta description under 120 characters. You can check character counts, for example, using Word Counter. Try different variations and track the results.

7. Broken links and error pages

Search engines appreciate links. Broken links and error pages degrade your site’s user experience and damage your site’s search engine visibility. Broken links are links that point to error pages on your site.

404 and any other deleted or error pages to which links are pointed to (within the site or from other sites) should be redirected by type 301 permanent redirects to reasonable addresses.

For example, paid Ahrefs or Semrush tools or the free Google Search Console can be used to investigate broken links and error pages.

8. Neglect of search engine-friendly technology

Search engines often don’t know how to click on user-friendly elements implemented with JavaScript, such as drop-down menus or “load more” buttons.

This means that search engines may not always execute JavaScript when wading through a site, which may result in some content not being indexed. This is often reflected in fluctuations in search engine rankings or slow indexing of important content. Sometimes a site doesn’t work at all without JavaScript, which is naturally bad for search engine visibility.

There are several technical solutions to JS-challenges. Read more about the topic in the article written by Search Engine Journal on 19.9.2024 or ask us for more information. Google also has comprehensive guidance and a series of videos on the subject.

9. Poorly organized content

Organizing content clearly and logically using appropriate HTML elements, such as different heading levels (H1-H6), helps search engines understand the structure and importance of your site. This will improve the user experience and strengthen your site’s search engine ranking.

10. Wading management: Sitemaps, robots.txt, nofollow, canonical, and noindex tags

Search engines’ so-called wading budget is limited. Therefore, everything unnecessary should be closed out of the reach of search engines and everything important should be made available to search engines. For example, indexing parameter pages is problematic.

Sitemaps, robots.txt, canonical, nofollow, and noindex tags are powerful and important tools for telling search engine search bots what to focus on and what they don’t need to spend their resources on.

Ready to grow?

By investing in these areas right now, you can significantly improve your site’s visibility in search engines and at the same time boost your sales. Dagmar’s team of SEO experts is ready to help.

Is the potential of your site also being explored?

AUTHOR

Sampo Saukko

Technical SEO Specialist

sampo.saukko@dagmar.fi

+358505210152

Sampo works as a Technical SEO Specialist at Dagmar. He has long and diverse experience in digital marketing, search engine optimization and web development.
Sampo combines its in-depth technology and SEO expertise with business understanding and utilizes advanced AI solutions in its work to ensure that customers’ websites are competitive, user-friendly and easy to find in both current search engines and future platforms.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time in nature, spending time at her summer cottage and travelling.