Lesson 04: Technical SEO

Lesson 04: Overview

In this lesson, you’ll learn:
✅ What Technical SEO is and why it’s crucial for rankings.
✅ How to optimize website structure and crawlability.
✅ The importance of site speed, mobile-friendliness, and HTTPS security.
✅ How to fix common Technical SEO issues using free tools.
✅ A Technical SEO checklist to apply to any website.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to improve website performance, fix indexing issues, and enhance user experience for better rankings.

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1. What is Technical SEO?

🔹 Technical SEO refers to optimizing the technical aspects of a website to improve its ranking in search engines.

It focuses on:
✔ Making a site fast, secure, and easy to navigate.
✔ Helping search engines crawl and index pages correctly.
✔ Improving the user experience (UX) on all devices.

🚀 Why Technical SEO Matters:
✔ Faster websites rank higher and reduce bounce rates.
✔ Google prefers mobile-friendly sites.
✔ Fixing crawl errors ensures search engines can find all your content.
✔ Secure websites (HTTPS) get a ranking boost.

💡 Example: Imagine you have great content, but your site is slow and not mobile-friendly. Google will prioritize faster, optimized sites over yours, pushing you down in search results.

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2. Key Technical SEO Elements & How to Optimize Them

🔹 1. Website Crawlability & Indexing (Ensure Google Can Find Your Pages!)

Search engines use crawlers (bots) to scan websites and index pages. If they can’t crawl your site properly, your content won’t appear in search results!

✅ How to Check If Your Site is Indexed
✔ Go to Google and type:

site:yourwebsite.com

If your pages show up, they’re indexed. If not, you need to fix indexing issues!

✅ How to Fix Indexing Issues
✔ Submit your XML Sitemap to Google Search Console.
✔ Check for crawl errors in Google Search Console under “Coverage”.
✔ Use robots.txt to control which pages search engines can crawl.

🚀 Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console → URL Inspection Tool to check if a specific page is indexed!

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🔹 2. Site Speed Optimization (Faster Sites Rank Higher!)

Google prioritizes fast-loading websites because users hate slow sites!

✅ How to Test Your Site Speed
Use free tools like:
✔ Google PageSpeed Insights (https://pagespeed.web.dev/)
✔ GTmetrix (https://gtmetrix.com/)

✅ How to Improve Page Speed
✔ Compress images (Use TinyPNG or ShortPixel).
✔ Enable browser caching & lazy loading.
✔ Minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
✔ Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare.
✔ Upgrade to fast hosting (Avoid slow shared hosting plans).

💡 Example: If your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, users may leave, hurting your SEO rankings!

🚀 Pro Tip: Use Google’s Core Web Vitals report in Search Console to see real-world speed data!

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🔹 3. Mobile-Friendliness (Optimizing for Mobile SEO!)

Google follows a mobile-first indexing approach, meaning it ranks sites based on their mobile version first!

✅ How to Check If Your Site is Mobile-Friendly
✔ Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test (https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly).

✅ How to Fix Mobile Issues
✔ Use a responsive design (WordPress themes like Astra or GeneratePress are mobile-friendly).
✔ Ensure buttons, text, and images are easy to view & tap on mobile.
✔ Avoid intrusive pop-ups that block content.

🚀 Pro Tip: More than 60% of Google searches happen on mobile. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing traffic!

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🔹 4. Secure Your Site with HTTPS (Boost Trust & Rankings!)

Google gives a ranking boost to websites that use HTTPS (secure connection) instead of HTTP (unsecure connection).

✅ How to Check If Your Site is Secure
✔ Open your website and check the URL bar:

• If it shows 🔒 HTTPS, your site is secure.
• If it shows ⚠️ Not Secure, you need an SSL certificate.

✅ How to Install an SSL Certificate (For Free!)
✔ If your hosting provider doesn’t offer SSL, install Let’s Encrypt SSL (free).
✔ Update all internal links to HTTPS to avoid mixed content errors.

🚀 Pro Tip: HTTPS protects user data and prevents warnings in Chrome, improving trust and rankings!

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🔹 5. Fix Broken Links & Redirect Errors (Improve UX & Rankings!)

🔹 Broken links (404 errors) hurt user experience & SEO.
🔹 Redirect issues (301, 302 redirects) waste link authority if done incorrectly.

✅ How to Find & Fix Broken Links
✔ Use Google Search Console → Coverage Report to find 404 errors.
✔ Use Broken Link Checker (https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/).
✔ Fix broken links by redirecting them using 301 redirects (Use Rank Math or Yoast SEO on WordPress).

🚀 Pro Tip: Don’t overuse 302 redirects (temporary). Always use 301 redirects (permanent) to keep SEO value!

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🔹 6. Optimize XML Sitemap & Robots.txt

✅ XML Sitemap: A sitemap helps search engines find all your pages.
✔ Generate an XML Sitemap using Yoast SEO (WordPress) or XML-Sitemap.com.
✔ Submit it to Google Search Console under “Sitemaps.”

✅ Robots.txt: Controls which pages Google should crawl or ignore.
✔ Avoid blocking important pages!
✔ Use robots.txt testing tool in Google Search Console.

🚀 Pro Tip: If a page is important for SEO, make sure it’s not blocked in robots.txt or set to “noindex”!

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3. Technical SEO Checklist (Step-by-Step Guide!)

✅ Check if your site is indexed (Use site:yourdomain.com).
✅ Improve page speed (Google PageSpeed Insights & GTmetrix).
✅ Make sure your site is mobile-friendly (Google Mobile-Friendly Test).
✅ Use HTTPS (Secure your site with SSL).
✅ Fix broken links & redirects (Google Search Console, Broken Link Checker).
✅ Submit your XML Sitemap to Google Search Console.
✅ Check & update your robots.txt file.

🎯 Apply these steps to your website for better rankings!

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4. Homework / Action Steps 📝

🔹 Step 1: Test your website speed using Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. Write down 3 things you can improve.
🔹 Step 2: Check if your website is mobile-friendly (Google Mobile-Friendly Test). If not, fix it!
🔹 Step 3: Run a site audit using Google Search Console and fix any crawl errors or broken links.

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5. What’s Next? 🚀

👉 In Lesson 05, we’ll cover Off-Page SEO & Link Building – The Secret to Authority & Higher Rankings!

Stay tuned and keep optimizing! 💡🔥

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