The Power of Paradigm’s Technical SEO Services
10.15.24
Marketing agencies often talk about SEO in terms of keyword-rich content. But there is much more to optimization than meets the eye. Your content has two audiences: human users and search engine bots. The Paradigm team uses technical SEO services to help clients satisfy both and reach results — read on to discover our insights from our technical SEO specialists.
The Ranking Process
Technical SEO ensures that your website meets the technical requirements of modern search engines. It lays the foundations for the on-page SEO efforts you are familiar with. But technical SEO is rather complicated — to understand it, you must learn how search engines process your content.
Rankings are determined through three stages:
- Crawling. This stage is when a search engine explores the internet. “Bots” go from one webpage to another, following links and collecting data about each page they visit.
- Indexing. From there, the search engine documents the information and stores it in a database to create an index for later. When a user searches for something later, bots scroll through the index to identify relevant content to display.
- Rendering. Search engines try to see a webpage as you would. The search engine will load the page, run any script and examine the content appearance. Rendering helps it understand what the page looks like and how it functions.
In the words of our technical SEO experts: Search engines find, sort and understand your website before ranking. Without optimization through technical SEO services, the search engine may not be able to begin the first step — meaning that even the most well-written content will not display or rank on the results page.
The Importance of Website Structure
A logical structure makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for. But, Google also relies on logical structures to understand the importance of each page and how it relates to the others.
Every page needs to be organized predictably under the appropriate tabs. For example, your services overview page should have links to more specific services. In the case of an attorney, their “personal injury” page would link out to other categories such as “car crashes” or “medical malpractice.”
Technical SEO services also check that all pages are accessible via internal links. For example, if a user comes to your homepage, they should be able to find a link to your contact page within your content as well as in the navigation bar. With this interconnected structure, your website will provide a firm basis for users and search engines to traverse your content. Plus, it will make other technical changes simpler to address.
When consulting technical SEO experts, solutions hinge on the state of your website. For some, refining content could be as simple as restructuring your current navigation — others, it may be best to conduct a comprehensive website redevelopment and start fresh. Consider contacting a marketing agency to review your options.
The Components
Technical SEO services tweak minor websites to create major results. While there are countless items to cover beyond website architecture, a few items of note include:
- Site speed. Images, videos and more determine how quickly your website loads. Optimizing these items for speed allows search engines to crawl and rank your content efficiently.
- Mobile Optimization. Your website user experience must adapt to all possible devices. Mobile optimization encourages low bounce rates and high user engagement, which act as positive signals for search engines.
- Site security (SSL). A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encrypts data transmitted between users and websites to protect sensitive information. The presence of an SSL certificate is a positive signal of trust for search engines.
- Duplicate content. Duplicate content forces search engines to waste time and resources crawling and indexing multiple versions. If you fail to vary content through technical SEO services, pages will compete for the same spot on the search engine results page.
- URL structure. URLs must be simple, descriptive and logical. This will reinforce your established website architecture, helping both human users and search engines navigate to the page they are looking for.
- Structured Data Markup (Schema). Schema markup is a set of tags added within code to clearly define the meaning of the information found on your website. This microdata gives search engines a straightforward, tech-based understanding of your website’s content and intent.
Our Technical SEO Services
Paradigm implements established website audit tools to identify issues on your preferred domain. From there, our team uses technical SEO services to implement solutions, such as:
- SSLs. The “S” in “https” indicates the presence of an SSL — adding this security protocol improves rankings by signaling your website is safe for users.
- Original Content. While there is no search engine penalty for duplicate content, it may cause issues in rankings due to competing content. A technical SEO specialist prunes websites for unnecessary, outdated or duplicate content so there is distinct value on every page.
- Compression. Compression makes photos and videos smaller, meaning less data to transfer and faster page load times.
- Minification. Similarly, minification improves page load times — developers trim down unnecessary characters users can’t see in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
- Mobile responsiveness. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so Paradigm’s technical SEO services ensure your website adapts well to a mobile format. Optimization may include changes to spacing, fonts, color contrast and beyond.
- Plug-Ins. Plug-ins need consistent updates to load quickly and stay fully secure. A technical SEO specialist reviews website plug-ins, ensuring the use of the latest versions.
- Corrected links. Over time, linked content may be deleted or have changed URLs. Our team finds missing or broken pages, resolves the issue or redirects traffic to more up-to-date content.
Contact Our Technical SEO Specialists
Your website is where perception, sales and conversions start — you never want your users to experience setbacks before they take action. Ambitious organizations note signs of technical challenges and seek proactive resolutions. If you’ve experienced broken links, slow loading, error screens or poor mobile responsiveness, technical SEO may be the culprit.
Augment your efforts with vetted technical SEO specialists on your side — contact Paradigm to start technical SEO services today.