Over the years you will have heard many friends, colleagues and experts talk about how quality content provides you with the best footfall for rankings, but it’s only the on-page aspect of SEO. There’s a whole other side to the world of SEO which can assist your site get one up on the competition – the technical side which forms an aspect of off-page SEO.
There’s so much detail about the technical side of Search Engine Optimisation which would span the size of a paperback book, we don’t necessarily want small business owners having to learn about all these aspects; just put a few easy to understand areas to put on your radar so you can have a relatively informed discussion with your developer website provider or marketing team.
Your website can be the most attractive in your list of competitors whether that be locally or worldwide but Google (and other Search Engines) also takes in to consideration of how well looked after the site is also, never take it for granted as problems can arise quite quickly that can make an impact on your rankings.
SSL Certificates
SSL certificates are a basic security feature for websites. In essence, it’s a small file that is installed on your website’s server, after it’s installed correctly a little padlock appears in your browser.
You may have seen these before on larger website such as Amazon or Facebook but it’s something that in recent years Google is wanting to see and can mark you more positively or more negatively based on it.
For those that have had websites for several years that have been left dormant, you might find that you don’t have this padlock on your website. They can be applied to the website relatively easily, speak to your website builder or web platform for more information.
Site load speed
If you think about it from a users perspective, if a website takes too long to load then you will probably look at the next link in the search engine results this can therefore result in lost business with that specific product or service.
Google and other search engines take a similar stance on this issue, site speeds and other similar aspects into consideration when it comes to ranking. If it doesn’t think your website will effectively deliver the information that that person is looking for then it will send traffic to your competitors.
A useful tool to see how your site is doing in terms of speed performance is the Google Developers page speed tool.
Run your site through this tool and see if there are any areas in which you can improve. Any decent website developer worth their salt will be able to assist you with these aspects, pull up the problem that’s been highlighted with this tool and put it in front of the developer. If you don’t have a retainer or something similar with a developer or agency they may want to bill you for their time but it’s definitely worthwhile looking into.
Security
Websites are being attacked constantly by either bots or actual people trying to use your website for their own personal gain. Whether that be spilling spurious links to your users with putting their data in a vulnerable position or even a ploy to hold your website ransom for monetary gain. Sounds scary eh? It can be…
What we want to do is avoid all of that, as it can cause some real problems for you in the future. Speak to your Developer about reviewing the security measures that you have in place, if they haven’t been looked at in a while or you don’t have any measures in place at all it might be worth making it a priority – this can be less drastic depending on which platform you are on but if you’ve got a WordPress site it’s definitely the one to be most cautious about.
Keep an eye on your stats
We’re not expecting for you to become an expert on analytics but taking the odd peek at your stats can uncover hidden issues earlier on and therefore avoiding bigger problems in the future.
You could have seen a drastic spike or drop in traffic against the usual, this could be problematic and have something to do with any of the aforementioned issues.
Ask for your agency, or developer to set up a monthly report and take a quick glance at it.