What is Technical SEO?

There are a variety of these elements, from directives such a noindex tag, to signals such as canonical tags and url structure.

There are many elements to consider, and I’ll cover these another time. For now, I want you to understand the reason why we carry out technical optimisation.

All technical optimisation is for the core purpose of making a site easily crawlable.

When a site can be crawled, information (content) within it can be discovered.

So, why is technical SEO important?

Well, it’s important because it’s the foundation of improving a site so more visitors can be acquired.

And let me also say this: we optimise for users, we acquire them via organic search.

SEO may stand for search engine optimisation, however, we’re not optimising for search engines. I say this, specifically, this isn’t simply semantics. Disregarding users often leads to a spammy approach.

We’re optimising for users, and showing search engines we have the best information users seek when they use the search engine, like Google, for example.

The first step in us allowing Google to discover we have the best information is to ease its ability to crawl our website. This is why technical SEO is the foundation of optimisation.

Content is king. However, when it is not discovered, what does it matter?

Now, sticking with Google as an example, you may be asking: why does Google want to crawl my site?

Well, let’s think about this. Let’s consider Google’s purpose:

Their corporate mission is

“to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Their customers are everyone who want to find something. Anything.

They have one of the largest customer base in the world.

As marketers, we can grow our customers by utilising their customer base.

This is the power of search, organic search.

So, how does Google work?

Going by their mission statement, their aim is to service their customers with what they seek, ensuring they are as accurate as possible, and as quick as possible.

As long as they wish to fulfil their mission, they need to consistently be on a journey of discovery.

They discover by searching the world wide web for information, i.e. content. This search is done by their searchbots, i.e. crawlers.

When they can crawl a website, they can discover the contents of the site.

Using complex algorithms, they can then decipher the usefulness of the website’s content to their customers, thus, fulfilling their objective of finding, organising and presenting information to their customers.

The very first step is discovering information, by crawling websites.

Technical SEO is the ongoing process of ensuring a website is crawlable so information (i.e. content) is discoverable.

How does Technical SEO impact my business?

Now, you may say, so how does all of this impact my business? Do I even need Google, or any other search engine to crawl my site?

Well, in short, yes! Yes, you do.

Organic search is an incredibly rich source for traffic acquisition.

You need traffic, and to (strategically) convert that traffic into revenue so your business grows.

Now, when it comes to SEO, I’m sure you realise in order to generate traffic, you need to have keywords that rank well.

This correlation is clear, you may have seen it visualised in a number of presentation decks.

I want you to understand that rankings is not the beginning stage for SEO conversions.

In order to achieve rankings, you need your website to have visibility in the SERPs.

To achieve this you need your site to be indexed. The first step to be indexed, is to have crawlability.

This is the linear navigation you want to keep in mind when it comes to technical SEO.

You carry out technical optimisation for your site to be crawlable.

This leads to indexation, which gains you organic visibility, which gains you rankings.

Rankings lead to traffic, which leads to conversion, which generates revenue.

This process, from crawlability to revenue, begins with technical optimisation.

Do you see the value of technical SEO?

This is why SEOs carry out technical optimisation. We see the value of it.

When we make technical recommendations, it’s to make the crawling of the site easier because it has an impact on business revenue.

Tech SEO isn’t for the sake of good SEO. It matters because it impacts  the revenue the site can generate.

This is why you ought to consider the value this area of SEO has on your business.

And also why you want to ensure SEO and Web Developers have a closely regarded working relationship.

When operations between SEO and Web Developers in your organisation is disjointed, do you see how it can impact your business?