University Institute of Engineering

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

& ENGINEERING
Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science & Engineering)
Subject Name : SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Subject Code: 20CST-463
Topic: Lecture-1.2.2
Lecture- Technical SEO
By : Sourabh Budhiraja

DISCOVER . LEARN . EMPOWER

 Syllabus
• UNIT-1: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

• CHAPTER-1: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization:

• Understanding of search engines, Basics of SEO, Keyword Research, On-Page
Optimization, Technical SEO.

• CHAPTER-2: Content Creation and SEO tools:

• Content Creation for SEO, SEO Analytics, SEO Tools, Local SEO, SEO Ethics and
Future Trends.

2
 CONTENTS
• What is Search Engine Optimization?
• Why is SEO important?
• Types of SEO
• What is Technical SEO?
• Why is Technical SEO important?
• Why should you optimize your site technically?
• Characteristics of a technically optimized website.

3
 What is Search Engine Optimization?
• SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is a crucial aspect of digital
marketing and online visibility. It involves optimizing a website or online content
to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Fig. 1.2.2(a)

4
 Why is SEO important?
• To help gain more visitors: majority of users click on only the top 4-5 web pages
appearing in search results, so it’s very important for a website to appear in the top
results of a search engine.
• Important for social promotion of a website: if a website appears in top results of a
search engine such as Google, Bing, etc. then it gains instant popularity and to some
extent trust of a user.
• It plays an important role in improving the business of a commercial site: if two
websites are selling the same product, for example, both Myntra and Koovs focus on
selling fashion clothing, then the site having a better position in the search result of a
search engine has chances of getting more users as compared to the other.
• Improving user experience: SEO doesn’t focus only on improving search results but
also on improving the user experience and usability of a website so that a website is more
appealing to a user.
5
 Types of SEO
There are mainly two types of SEO practices that are used for this purpose:

• On-page SEO
• Off-Page SEO

We also have another SEO,

Technical SEO

6
 What is Technical SEO?
• Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website for search engines, but it can
also include activities meant to improve user experience.

Fig. 1.2.2(b)
7
 Why is Technical SEO important?
• Technical SEO can greatly impact a website’s performance on Google. If pages on
your site are not accessible to search engines, they won’t appear or rank in search
results—no matter how valuable your content is. This results in a loss of traffic to
your website and potential revenue to your business. Plus, the page speed and
mobile-friendliness of a website are Google-confirmed ranking factors.

• If your pages load slowly, users may get annoyed and leave your site. User
behaviors like this may signal that your site doesn’t create a positive user
experience. As a result, Google may not rank your site well.

8
 Why should you optimize your site
technically?
Google and other search engines want to present their users with the best possible
results for their queries. Therefore,
Google’s robots crawl and evaluate web pages on many factors. Some factors are
based on the user’s experience, like how fast a page loads. Other factors help search
engine robots grasp what your pages are about. This is what, among others,
structured data does. So, by improving technical aspects, you help search engines
crawl and understand your site. If you do this well, you might be rewarded with
higher rankings. Or even earn yourself some rich results!

9
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website
• A technically sound website is fast for users and easy to crawl for search engine
robots. A proper technical setup helps search engines to understand what a site is
about. It also prevents confusion caused by, for instance, duplicate content.
Moreover, it doesn’t send visitors, nor search engines, to dead-ends caused by
non-working links. Here, we’ll shortly go into some important characteristics of a
technically optimized website.

10
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website
1. It’s fast
Nowadays, web pages need to load fast. People are impatient and don’t want to wait
for a page to open. In 2016, research showed that 53% of mobile website visitors
will leave if a webpage doesn’t open within three seconds. And the trend hasn’t
gone away – research from 2022 suggests ecommerce conversion rates drop by
roughly 0.3% for every extra second it takes for a page to load. So, if your website
is slow, people get frustrated and move on to another website, and you’ll miss out
on all that traffic.
2.It’s crawlable for search engines
Search engines use robots to crawl, or spider, your website. The robots follow links
to discover content on your site. A great internal linking structure will ensure they
understand the most important content on your site.
11
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website(Cont.)
3. Robots.txt file
You can give robots directions on your site by using the robots.txt file. It’s a
powerful tool, which should be handled carefully. As we mentioned initially, a small
mistake might prevent robots from crawling (important parts of) your site.

4. The meta robots tag

If you want search engine robots to crawl a page, but to keep it out of the search
results for some reason, you can tell them with the robots meta tag.

12
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website(Cont.)
5. It doesn’t have (many) dead links
We’ve discussed that slow websites are frustrating. What might be even more
annoying for visitors than a slow page, is landing on a page that doesn’t exist. If a
link leads to a non-existing page on your site, people will encounter a 404 error
page. There goes your carefully crafted user experience!

6. It doesn’t confuse search engines with duplicate content

Search engines might get confused if you have the same content on multiple pages
of your site – or even on other sites. Because, if these pages show the same content,
which one should they rank highest? As a result, they might give all pages with the
same content a lower ranking.

13
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website(Cont.)
7. It’s secure
• A technically optimized website is a secure website. Making your website safe for
users to guarantee privacy is a basic requirement nowadays. You can do many
things to make your (WordPress) website secure, and one of the most crucial
things is implementing HTTPS.
8. Plus: it has structured data
Structured data helps search engines better understand your website, content, or
business. With structured data, you can tell search engines what kind of product you
sell, or which recipes you have on your site. Plus, it will allow you to provide
details about those products or recipes.

14
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website(Cont.)
9.International websites use hreflang
• If your site targets more than one country or multiple countries where the same
language is spoken, search engines need a little help understanding which countries
or languages you’re trying to reach. If you help them, they can show people the
right website for their area in the search results.

10.It has an XML sitemap

• Simply put, an XML sitemap is a list of all pages of your site. It serves as a roadmap
for search engines on your site. With it, you’ll ensure search engines won’t miss any
important content on your site. The XML sitemap is often categorized into posts,
pages, tags, or other custom post types, and includes the number of images and the
last modified date for every page.
15
 Characteristics of a technically
optimized Website(Cont.)
• Hreflang tags help you do just that. You can use them to define which country and
language each page is intended to serve. This also solves a possible duplicate
content problem: even if your US and UK sites show the same content, Google
will know they’re written for different regions.

16
 Technical SEO Audit Fundamentals
Before you begin with your technical SEO audit, there are a few fundamentals that
you need to put in place.
1. Audit Your Preferred Domain
Your domain is the URL that people type to arrive on your site, like hubspot.com.
Your website domain impacts whether people can find you through search and
provides a consistent way to identify your site.

17
 Technical SEO Audit Fundamentals
2. Implement SSL
You may have heard this term before — that’s because it’s pretty important.
SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, creates a layer of protection between the web server (the
software responsible for fulfilling an online request) and a browser, thereby making
your site secure.
After you set up SSL, you’ll need to migrate any non-SSL pages from http to https. It’s
a tall order, but worth the effort in the name of improved ranking. Here are the steps
you need to take:
• Redirect all http://yourwebsite.com pages to https://yourwebsite.com.
• Update all canonical and hreflang tags accordingly.
• Update the URLs on your sitemap (located at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml) and
your robot.txt (located at yourwebsite.com/robots.txt).
18
 Technical SEO Audit Fundamentals
Set up a new instance of Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for
your https website and track it to make sure 100% of the traffic migrates over.

3. Optimize Page Speed

• Do you know how long a website visitor will wait for your website to load?
Six seconds ... and that’s being generous.

19
 Technical SEO Audit Fundamentals
4. Crawlability Checklist
• Crawlability is the foundation of your technical SEO strategy. Search bots will
crawl your pages to gather information about your site.

Fig. 1.2.2(c)

20
 References
Books and Journals
• Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, Jessie C Stricchiola, “The Art of SEO : Mastering Search
Engine Optimization”, O'Reilly Media, October,2009.
• https://yoast.com/what-is-technical-seo/
• Fhttps://www.startupgeeks.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ebook-seo-sej-complete-guide-2018.pdf

Video Link-
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLUkIgY8MTE&list=PLjVLYmrlmjGdNxIBIdaDEHtI4gAxaYoq1&a
b_channel=WsCubeTech
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83RXYrqRLeM&list=PLNfnAKZ4Zsar3Jwb59D0dJeQ-RnsaqpoT&a
b_channel=UmarTazkeer

Web Link-
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/search-engine-optimization-seo/
• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/seo/index.htm
21