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Tech SEO Checklist for Small Business Owners

Are you a small business owner looking to maximize your online visibility? 

Tech SEO is the answer! 

What Is Tech SEO?

Tech SEO is a type of search engine optimization that focuses on the technical aspects of websites. 

It helps ensure your website runs as efficiently and effectively as possible.  That way, your customers can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. 

Simply, it ensures search engines like Google can:

All businesses need an effective Tech SEO strategy to succeed in their online marketing efforts.

Table of Contents

Tech SEO Is Different Than Regular SEO

Traditional SEO might sound familiar to you, but Tech SEO is different. 

Traditional SEO means optimizing content like blog posts and web pages to make it more visible to organic search engines. 

Tech SEO, on the other hand, focuses on the technical aspects of your site that can affect its visibility. This could include page load speed, structured data, redirects, and sitemaps. 

By managing these technical elements, you can ensure your site is as visible as possible.

Why Tech SEO Is Important to Your Small Business

As a small business owner, you must ensure potential customers see your website. That’s where Technical SEO comes in. 

Tech SEO can help ensure you’re ranking in the top Google results so you attract more visitors and sales. 

It ensures your website is optimized for the following:

Investing in Tech SEO will give you an edge against your competitors and make it easier to grow your business online.

The Basics of Tech SEO

As a small business owner, you have a lot on your plate.

So it can be easy to forget the vital role that technical SEO plays in helping drive website traffic and provide an optimized user experience. 

A robust technical SEO strategy is essential for ensuring your website focuses on ranking signal and stands out among competitors in search engine results. 

Learn the basics of Tech SEO, including:

  1. A step-by-step guide to setting up a technical audit.
  2. Identifying common technical issues that can hurt your ranking. 

Let’s dive in!

The Fundamentals of Tech SEO

Tech SEO is a crucial part of optimizing your website for search engines. 

It involves ensuring that your site’s technical aspects are working correctly so that Google and other search engines can understand it easily. 

This includes the following:

By taking care of these things, you’ll ensure your website drives more potential customers to your business.

Step-By-Step Guide to Setting up a Technical SEO Audit 

As a small business owner, a technical SEO audit is crucial for ensuring your website is optimized for success.

Tech SEO Tools

You want your small business website to be seen. 

Tech SEO tools are the key to getting your site in front of the right people. But what even are tech SEO tools, you ask? 

Don’t worry. We’re here to explain everything you need to know about Tech SEO tools and how they can help your business grow. 

Read on for more!

Meet Ahrefs, Frase, and Semrush

Are you looking to give your small business website a competitive edge? Investing in Tech SEO tools is the first step. 

Tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster tools, ahrefs, Frase, and SEMRush offer potent insights into your website’s performance.

They all help you identify opportunities for optimization and improvement. 

These tools provide valuable data about your site:

Get ready to level up your small business website with the help of Tech SEO tools.

Free SEO Tools

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly way to get started with Tech SEO, several free tools can help. 

These tools can help you identify areas for improvement:

  1. Google Analytics
  2. Bing Webmaster Tools
  3. Google Search Console
  4. Moz’s Link Explorer

Additionally, some web hosting platforms include basic SEO features in their plans at no extra cost. 

Ultimately, these tools can help you achieve better rankings without spending a fortune!

Steps to Get Started with Tech SEO

Are you a small business owner looking to get started with Technical SEO? 

Making the right changes to your website and using the right tools can help you rank higher on search engine results. 

We’ve compiled this technical SEO checklist of technical SEO tasks to help you get started. 

Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on increasing your website visibility!

Checklist of Basic SEO Tasks

1. Start by checking for any existing errors or warnings in Google Search Console. 

2. Check your site’s URL structure and how it appears in search engine results. Also, make sure your URLs are easy to read and understand.

3. Test your website speed and look for areas where you can improve its loading time.

4. Check if your website is mobile-friendly and make adjustments as needed.

5. Examine the content on your website and ensure it’s crawlable, unique, and valuable.

6. Optimize your images, videos, and other multimedia elements.

7. Develop an XML Sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.

8. Ensure your website’s robots.txt file is in order and correctly set up.

9. Analyze your website’s outbound links to ensure they work correctly.

10. Double-check that you’ve implemented structured data correctly to increase search visibility.

11. If you have pages on your website that are not linked to others, these are called orphan pages. Orphan pages can hurt your SEO and make it harder for users to find the piece of content they need.

How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices

Optimizing your website for mobile devices is essential to reach more mobile users. 

Most of the web traffic comes from people using their smartphones; the mobile version of your site is important.

So ensuring your website looks and functions well on smaller screens is essential. 

Start by ensuring your site has a responsive design to be viewed easily on any device. Then take the time to test the layout and navigation in many browsers. 

Finally, double-check that all images are optimized for mobile devices and that they load quickly. 

These simple steps will ensure that everyone viewing your website has a great experience regardless of their device.

Best Practices for Creating an XML Sitemap

You want to ensure your website gets optimized and visible to search engines. 

An XML Sitemap is essential to this process. It allows Google to navigate and index your site’s content quickly. 

To start creating your sitemap, start by listing all the pages of your website in order. 

Then, use a sitemap generator tool to create the file for you—or do it manually. Once complete, upload the file to your web server and add the file’s location to your robots.txt file. 

Finally, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console so it can be discovered and indexed. 

These steps help search engines find, crawl, and better understand your website.

How to Use Redirects Correctly

There’s a simple way to ensure visitors can smoothly find the page they’re looking for—redirects. 

Redirects help you control which web page visitors land on after following a link or entering a web address. They also help you keep your site organized and easier to navigate, helping visitors and search engines alike. 

Setting up redirects is straightforward, so why not give it a try!

How to Fix Orphan Pages

Orphan pages are web pages on the internet with no links connecting them to any other web pages. They’re like lost puppies, just wandering around searching for a home—and it’s our job to help them find one! 

To find orphan pages:

How to Ensure Accessibility and Indexability

It’s essential to ensure your website is accessible and indexed by search engines. 

To do this, create an effective information architecture for your website with clear and concise:


That way, search engines can easily find and identify your content.  

Use appropriate meta tags and robot text files to help guide crawlers to the correct pages on your site. 

Finally, use structured data to link related content across your website to improve indexability and increase visibility.

How to Crawl Your Website Using Google Search Console

You can use Google Search Console to crawl your site and identify potential issues. 

This will allow you to troubleshoot technical SEO issues quickly and efficiently. 

To start, sign in to Google Search Console and click on the “Crawl” tab. You can click on “Fetch as Google” to begin crawling specific URLs or all URLs on the site. 

As Google crawls the site, it will report any issues such as:

Once all errors have been identified and resolved, you can resubmit the URL for caching and indexing.

How to Set Up a Robots.txt File

As a small business owner, setting up a robots.txt file can seem daunting. But it doesn’t have to be! 

Robots.txt files provide instructions for web crawlers about which search engines should index pages or files on your website. 

To get started, create a text document called “robots.txt.” Then, add the following code snippet: User-agent: * Disallow: /. 

Next, identify which pages of your website you would like to be excluded from search engine indexing by adding specific directory paths after the “Disallow” line. 

Finally, upload the file to your server’s root directory so search engine crawlers can access it. 

With just a few simple steps, you can ensure that your website appears in the right places with the correct information.

How to Use Structured Data to Optimize Your Content

If you want to optimize the content on your website, use structured data. 

Structured data is code that makes it easier for Google to understand your content to show it in relevant searches. 

It’s a great way to make sure more people see your relevant content and that it ranks higher in search results. 

Plus, structured data is easy to implement — add the correct markup to your web pages, and you’re good to go.

Why Page Speed Optimization is Vital

You must focus on page speed optimizations to ensure your site performs well.

Sluggish loading pages can lead to increased bounce rates and decreased rankings.

You want to ensure that all images, files, and plugins are correctly optimized and minified. 

Switching to a faster web host may be necessary.

Give Tips On Optimizing Your Content for Voice Search

As a small business owner, you’ll want to ensure your content gets optimized for voice search. 

To do this, focus on natural language and use conversational phrases that match how someone would ask a question aloud. 

Make sure to include long-tail target keywords in your content to increase its chances of getting found through voice search. 

Also, break up your text with clear headings and sections. Doing this makes it easier for voice search algorithms to understand what the page is about and provide accurate results.

Common Technical SEO Mistakes to Avoid (and How to Fix Them!)

Are you a small business owner looking to get your website to the top of search engine results? 

Technical SEO can help – but it’s important to know what mistakes to avoid. 

Here, we’ll discuss some of the most common technical SEO mistakes that small business owners should avoid. 

Read on to learn more and ensure your website is optimized for success!

The Types of Technical Issues That Can Affect Your Website Ranking

As a small business owner, it’s essential to understand the technical issues that can affect your website ranking. 

Search engines like Google always look for ways to give searchers the best possible experience. That’s why they pay attention to how technically sound your website is. 

Technical issues such as slow loading times, incorrect URLs, duplicate content issues, and missing meta tags can all affect how high your website ranks in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Identifying and addressing any technical SEO problems is vital to optimizing your website and ensuring your content reaches its intended audience.

Not Having an SSL Certificate Is a Problem

As a small business owner, having an SSL certificate on your website is crucial. 

This ensures that your customers’ information stays secure and helps protect you from cyber threats. Without the certificate, visitors may not trust your website and could leave without making a purchase. 

Invest in a certificate today for added peace of mind and security.

Invest in an SSL Certificate

Securing your website with an SSL Certificate is necessary if you want a successful online presence. 

An SSL Certificate is designed to protect customer data like passwords and credit card information, so customers know their sensitive information is secure when visiting your site. 

An SSL Certificate can help boost your website’s rankings and improve trust with potential clients.

Use Your Sitemap Properly Or Else

Using sitemaps properly can impact your website’s visibility as a small business owner. 

A sitemap gives search engines an easier way to find and categorize content on your website, helping it appear in relevant search results. 

Ensure all crucial web pages are listed on the sitemap and update them with any new pages or changes. 

This will allow you to maximize the potential of Tech SEO for your small business.

Improper Website Structure Can Lead to Issues With Visibility

Having an organized website is critical for a successful Tech SEO strategy. 

A poor structure can lead to visibility issues on search engines.

If this is the case, it is difficult or impossible for potential customers to find you. 

Ensure your website is easy to navigate and explore by organizing pages and creating a site map. 

This will make it easier for search engine bots to crawl through your website and make your content more likely to appear in search results.

Poor Server Response Times Kill SEO Rankings

It’s essential to make sure your website is responding quickly. A slow server response time can hurt your SEO, so optimize it for the best performance.

Optimize Your Server Response Time

Take the time to optimize your server response time. 

Small changes can make a big difference in how quickly your website loads.

You don’t want potential customers abandoning your site before it even has a chance to show them what you offer. 

Keep an eye on how fast your website is loading and take steps to make it faster if needed.

Ensure the Content is Crawlable 

Make sure your content can be easily crawled and indexed by search engines. 

Use HTML instead of flash or javascript, and add unique meta tags to all pages. 

Check your website for broken links and optimize your server response time so search engines can easily access your website.

Lack of Crawlable Content Is Also A Problem

Your website must have no crawl errors to increase your visibility in search engines. 

This means having content on each page that can be identified and indexed by the search engine. 

Not ensuring that your content is crawlable can decrease your site’s visibility. 

Ensure you create a well-structured sitemap so the crawlers can find their way around effectively.

Having Duplicate Content Or Thin Content  Hurts Your Too

Duplicate or thin content is a major red flag regarding SEO. Suppose your website has many pages with similar or identical content. 

In that case, search engines may mistakenly think you’re trying to game the system, resulting in lower rankings and fewer leads. 

To avoid this, make sure all your web pages are unique and offer value to visitors.

Not Having An Effective Crawl Budget

As a small business owner, having an adequate crawl budget is crucial. 

The crawl budget is the number of pages Googlebot can and wants to crawl on your website. 

If this number is higher, important content won’t be indexed, meaning that customers won’t be able to find it – potentially hurting your rankings. 

Maximize your crawl budget by limiting redirects, improving page speed, and removing duplicate or low-quality content.

Duplicate Or Missing Meta Tags Hurt SEO Rankings

It’s important not to overlook meta tags in Tech SEO – they’re vital for search engine optimization. 

With them, your website will rank as highly as it should. 

Ensure every page has unique meta tags, and check for typos or missing information. 

Doing this will help your website increase rankings and give customers a better experience.

As a small business owner, staying on top of broken links should always be a priority. 

Links are crucial to gaining visibility and organic traffic from search engines.

Your ranking can suffer if your website contains links that no longer work. 

Track your website for broken links often so you can immediately replace them with ones that work.

Flash Or Javascript Elements Are SEO Killers

As a small business owner, you must be mindful of using elements like Flash and Javascript. 

Instead, try to use HTML whenever possible.

Doing this will ensure that your website is as accessible and crawlable as possible.

That means better SEO results for your website.

Failing to Use the Right URLs Can Hurt SEO Rankings

As a small business owner, it’s crucial to understand how URLs can impact your SEO. 

You must use the proper URLs to ensure your website’s visibility and ranking. 

Make sure you’re using consistent URLs and include relevant keywords in your URLs to get the best results.

Make Sure to Optimize Images Correctly

As a small business owner, optimizing your images for SEO is essential. 

Please do so to ensure faster page load times and higher rankings on Google.

Optimizing images means the following:

Taking these steps will help ensure your website loads fast and performs well.

Mobile Optimization Mistakes Can Hurt SEO Rankings

Making sure your website gets optimized for mobile devices is essential. 

Failing to do so can cause your website rankings to suffer.

Mobile optimization mistakes include pages with the following:

Make sure to optimize your website for mobile and track its performance.

Suppose you’re a small business owner looking to ensure your website is optimized for mobile. 

In that case, a good starting point is Google’s mobile-friendly test, which evaluates how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device. 

This tool can help you ensure your site reaches the biggest audience possible!

Set Up Google Search Console Or Else

Have you set up Google Search Console? 

Having a GSC account can be a big mistake and can affect your website’s visibility on search engine rankings. 

Take a few minutes to create an account and start with Tech SEO today!

Not Utilizing the Right SEO Tools Will Hurt Your Rankings

If you’re serious about getting the most out of tech SEO, use the right tools. 

Some cost money, but they could mean the difference between success and failure when optimizing your website for search engines. 

Set yourself up with an ahrefs account, Frase, and SEMRush to cover all your bases.

Conversion Rate Optimization Is Important Too

Growing your small business online through organic campaigns is integral to reaching your desired customer. 

With conversion rate optimization, you’ll be able to measure the success of those campaigns—finding out what works and what doesn’t—to maximize your efforts and get the most out of them. 

By monitoring conversions, you’ll have an accurate picture of how well your organic campaigns are performing and be able to adjust them as needed to ensure success.

How To Improve Your Conversion Rates

As a small business owner, maximizing the potential of every customer who visits your website is important. Improving conversion rates is essential to growing your business and increasing sales. Here are some tips to help you get started: 

1. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly: customers should be able to navigate your website with their mobile devices easily.

2. Provide clear calls-to-action: Identify what action you want visitors to take on each page of your website, and make sure it’s prominent and easy to find.

3. Improve loading times: keep your design simple and optimize images and videos so they load quickly. 

4. Streamline the checkout process: reduce the steps required for customers to purchase and include an option for guest checkout to make it easier for new customers. 

5. Analyze user behavior: use analytics tools to understand better how visitors interact with your website, such as which pages they visit the most and where they drop off in the checkout process. 

By following these steps, you can ensure that every visitor to your website leads to a successful conversion.

Analyzing Your Results

You’ve done the hard work setting up your SEO strategy – now it’s time to reap the rewards! 

Analyzing your results can help you identify areas of improvement and understand how your SEO efforts are paying off. 

Take some time to look into your website data and review the performance of your initiatives. 

With the right insights, you can optimize your site and reach more potential customers.

How to Interpret Data from Google Analytics

Are you overwhelmed by all the data in Google Analytics? 

Don’t worry; it’s easier than it looks! 

Start by checking your traffic sources—see where people are coming from when they visit your website. 

Look at referral numbers to analyze which pages have the most views. 

Knowing this information will help you make changes that can improve website traffic.

How to Identify Areas for Improvement On Your Website

As a small business owner, keeping a close eye on your website’s performance is essential. 

Analyzing your website’s data in Google Analytics can help you identify where improvements are needed.

 Look for pages with high or low bounce rates and average session duration to understand better what parts of your site visitors interact with the most. 

Also, use Google Search Console to view which keywords drive the most organic traffic and check if any technical problems hinder your SEO. 

With all this information, you can quickly adjust to improve the user experience and boost your SEO rankings.

Conclusion

Now that you understand the fundamentals of tech SEO and how it can benefit small business owners, it’s time to start. 

Remember, optimizing your website for technical SEO means correctly setting up essential elements such as:

Additionally, identifying and correcting everyday tech SEO mistakes is critical in improving your website visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. 

With these simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to success with Tech SEO.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Tech SEO?

Tech SEO refers to the technical aspects of search engine optimization that ensure search engines can properly access, crawl, index, and understand a website. It involves optimizing factors like site speed, security, crawlability, etc. Tech SEO helps websites rank higher and drive more traffic.

Why is Tech SEO important for small businesses?

Tech SEO is crucial for small businesses because it helps them maximize their visibility and get found online. Small businesses can rank higher in search results by optimizing technical elements and attracting more website visitors and potential customers. Investing in Tech SEO gives small businesses an edge over competitors.

What are some common technical SEO issues that can impact rankings?

Some common technical issues that can negatively impact rankings include:

How can small businesses audit their website’s technical SEO?

Small businesses can audit technical SEO by:

What are some critical technical optimizations?

Some essential technical optimizations include:

What tools can help with technical SEO?

Useful technical SEO tools include:

How can small businesses avoid common technical SEO mistakes?

Small businesses can avoid technical SEO mistakes by:

Glossary

Tech SEO: Technical search engine optimization, focusing on technical website elements like site speed, security, crawlability, etc., to improve search rankings.

SSL Certificate: A digital certificate encrypts data and provides secure connections between websites and browsers. Having an SSL certificate is vital for SEO.

Sitemap: A file that lists all the pages on a website to help search engines properly crawl and index its content. XML sitemaps are a best practice.

Crawl Budget: The number of pages search engines can crawl on a website within a time. A higher crawl budget improves indexation.

Redirects: Send users from old or changed web pages to new ones. Proper redirects are essential for optimizing SEO.

Orphan Pages: Website pages with no inbound links, making it hard for search engines to find and index them.

Indexability: How easily search engines can add webpages to their index. Good technical SEO improves indexability.

Structured Data: Code that organizes info on a webpage in a machine-readable format to improve SEO. Examples are JSON-LD and Schema.org.

Page Speed: The time it takes for a webpage to load. Faster page speed improves user experience and SEO rankings.

Alt Text: Alternative text that describes an image, which helps with SEO optimization.

Crawling: The process search engine bots use to access and index web pages. Technical SEO helps pages get crawled properly.

Mobile Optimization: Making sure webpages are designed responsively to provide an optimal experience on mobile devices. Vital for SEO.

URL Structure: The way a website’s URLs are organized. Proper structure with keywords improves SEO results.

Duplicate Content: Search engines may penalize identical or overly similar web content as spammy.

Thin Content: Webpages with little unique, original, or valuable info. Both thin content and duplicate content hurt SEO.

More Resources for Your Small Business

Our co-founder, Matt LaClear, who has successfully run over 13,277 SEO campaigns for clients since 2009, has also created a plethora of resources to help you bolster your agency. Here are some of these invaluable resources:

Remember to leverage these resources to enhance your agency’s operations and drive better results for your clients.

A Special Offer from the Author

Matt LaClear

Small business owners, don’t forget that these valuable SEO tips are brought to you by our co-founder, Matt LaClear. With his extensive experience running over 13,277 SEO campaigns for clients since 2009, Matt has accumulated a wealth of knowledge in the SEO domain.

We encourage you to take advantage of Matt’s special offer: a free custom SEO strategy call. This is a unique opportunity to get expert insights tailored for your business straight from an industry leader.

Don’t miss this chance to elevate your business’s online presence and maximize your SEO efforts. Reach out to us today to schedule your free strategy call.

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR FREE CUSTOM SEO STRATEGY CALL WITH MATT

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