Technical SEO | Need to Know

Technical SEO Audit and Consulting

There are a myriad of SEO providers or Local Search Engine Optimization providers that also do website development, marketing, social media marketing, and a plethora of other services. Our hope is to provide some clarity on some of the terms in the industry and be a resource to help people get what they need.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the facet of SEO work that entails working with the code on your website. It's the work where a provider needs to access your hosting or the backend of your website to make changes. There is a litany of things they need to address, and the nice thing is, most SEO provider have access to SEO Audit software to run a diagnostic on your website.

Expect a SEO Audit Report

If you are hiring a Local SEO provider, you need to inquire about their SEO reporting capacity. If they do Technical SEO work, you need to ask to see an Audit report. This report should include at least:

  • 4xx & 5xx errors - Missing/Broken Pages
  • 301 & 302 redirects - Moved pages
  • Broken Images Audit
  • Duplicate Titles/Meta Descriptions
  • Pages that are too big
  • Pages with too many redirects
  • Empty Title/Meta Descriptions
  • Meta/Title Descriptions that are too long

The Audit should also evaluate key website factors:

  • Restricted Pages from Indexing
  • 404 Correctly Setup
  • Robot Text is setup correctly
  • XML Sitemap setup correctly
  • Mobile Friendly site
  • SSL working
  • WWW and HTTPS versions of the site

The level of detail you get from a SEO Audit Report will depend on the the type of reports your SEO provider can produce and is willing to communicate to you.

Got the SEO Audit Report?

Great, If you have an SEO Audit report, what's next? Well, your local technical SEO provider should be able to tell you how to fix the pages/content and, because they are a technical SEO provider, fix the pages.

They should be able to go into your website and sections of the code and make small revisions to make your site run optimally. The Audit report should guide their work plan.

Making these fixes has a few other benefits, beside improving your indexing rate:

  • Reducing large pages = faster page loading
  • Fixing broken links = Less frustration from site users
  • Fixing broken images = Improves the brand experience for site users
  • Remove duplicate content = Your site won't be overly redundant with the same information

What skills should a Technical SEO provider have?

First, An ability to communicate what is wrong with your website; what areas need to be improved, and how they are going to fix them.

Second, Technical Web skills to make changes. These include website development and programming skills; HTML / CSS / PHP / Javascript are some of the most basic.

Third, some strong soft skills including; Problem Solving, Analytical Capacity, Strategic Planning, Strong Work Ethic, and some drive to improve the sites technical aspects.

Can't my web person do this work?

Yes, but we strongly recommend you hire and Technical SEO person to lead the work. They should be an objective Third Party that is there to identify and provide solutions to the problems.

Note: Part of the reason you're hiring and SEO provider is to find and fix errors that your website developer missed. Some website providers are very focused on delivering a website, they miss some of the details that impact your SEO score. Sometimes they are sensitive about having their errors exposed.

Ideally they would see a technical SEO provider as a specialist there to refine the great work that was already done.

Waymaker SEO Technical SEO provider

For us, there is no ego. Just work that needs to be done. If you need a technical SEO provider to audit and fix your website, we are here. We can work with your team and web person to create a plan that fits your budget and schedule.

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Need some Technical SEO work completed?

Drop us an email and we send you a Free Audit report along with quote.