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Focus on the fundamentals
People are way too caught up in the next best thing when it comes to SEO. I understand that there is a continuous fight to stay up to date with Google’s most recent changes and nobody wants to be left behind. However, because of this people forget the basics. You have to understand crawlability, indexation, accessibility and performance, these are the core to any good technical SEO. It’s also important not to get caught up in minor issues with SEO, prioritise the changes with the best ROI and work your way down to the more nitty-gritty.
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Get ready for Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals are the latest news from Google in terms of SEO. Google changes what is included in their algorithms almost daily. Most of these changes are minor and are not even announced to the public. Web core vitals on the other hand are different. Google has given web owners 6 months’ notice to up their game when it comes to loading speeds and stability times. We recommend using page speed insights by Google to see where you stand in terms of web speed. Page speed is powered by the lighthouse and provides tips on how you can increase your load time speed. If you get this done in 2021 you won’t suffer any penalties in terms of search results, on top of that, should you be the only one of your competitors to have made the improvements you may find yourself on top!
If you only work on one element of technical SEO this year, make it sight speed. Here are a few things to consider when
- Start using Cloudflare, our recommended content delivery network.
- Bring JavaScript and CSS inline to minimise individual requests and implement server-side caching.
- Optimise photos and videos by converting to newer formats and compress to save data.
- Use Lighthouse to investigate third-party scripts on your page and remove them where possible.
- Establish processes and expectations for tagging.
- If designing new sites, set expectations and minimum standards for page speed. It is easier to avoid a problem than solve one.
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Use schema and structured data strategically
It is vital that crawlers can read, index, and serve your site’s content to the correct searcher. Ensure you are using the systems in place to use schema purposefully not just because you can. You need to use structured content with a clear goal in mind. Don’t waste time marking up everything on the site, focus on what will give you a return.
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Automation
When it comes to technical SEO, using languages like Python can be a huge time saver. Automation in analysis takes initial investment but will save copious amounts of time, in the long run, using clever code. By increasing your performance and task completion speeds you can save money and time which is the bottom line for every business.
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Analytics and reporting
Do not fall victim to vanity metrics while reporting on your SEO performance, this will come back to haunt you should anything go wrong along the way. Show what you did and what improved because of it. Aim for one specific thing at the beginning of a campaign, this will help keep you focused on the task at hand, and don’t forget to include outside effects on your performance while reporting. Organic traffic may increase temporarily due to a PPC campaign or news article but this will die down shortly afterwards making it seem as though your strategy is failing. Remember to include all possible variables so you can understand any fluctuations that happen.
Conclusion
The big takeaway from this article is to get up to speed on Google’s upcoming changes and make the necessary improvements to your site for them. On top of that, return to basics and look at the key building blocks to any SEO campaign, depending on the age of your site there may be improvements to be made simply from updating the image and video formats or compressing files. Be targeted in your goals and don’t get lost in the fast-flowing chatter about SEO’s latest thing.
