Technology optimization

What is technology optimization?

A well-functioning website with all the necessary extras to improve accessibility. It seems so obvious, but it's anything but. A technically sound website requires an enormous amount of time and attention. Yet, it's very important. Technical optimization lays the foundation for your website's visibility. It's hardly useful to spend a lot of money on SEO en SEA to invest when the website's underlying technology leaves much to be desired. 

When optimizing technical aspects, all technical components of the website are examined. This lays the foundation for all other SEO strategies that are implemented. If the technical foundation is not in order, it will significantly impact the results that can be achieved. But what exactly is technical optimization and how do you apply it? 

Definition of optimization techniques 

Optimizing the technique behind a website. That is the definition of technical optimization. In short: the website is improved to make it more accessible to the user and also more visible in search engines. 

Unfortunately, not every website owner sees the benefit of technical optimization yet. This is despite the fact that – in our opinion – every SEO process should start with it. You can't pull any old levers to increase a website's findability if the foundation is already shaky. Then you'll never achieve the best results. That's why the website must be structured correctly in the first place. Once that's the case, further steps can be considered. 

There are several technical issues that can affect usability. Furthermore, these can indirectly and directly also influence the position in the search results. Technical problems are quickly identified by Google as a low-quality website. This will cause you to rank lower in search results. So, you basically start the race one point behind the leader. Technical problems can include 404 page, very long loading times, images that don't fully load, etc. 

When I think of technical SEO, I think of website optimization that is about the **infrastructure of a website**, rather than its content or off-site popularity. It's what allows search engines to effectively crawl, understand, and index a website. Key aspects include: * **Crawlability and Indexability:** Ensuring search engine bots can easily access and understand all the important pages, and that these pages are added to the search engine's index. This involves things like sitemaps, robots.txt, and proper use of meta robots tags. * **Site Architecture:** A logical and organized site structure that helps users and search engines navigate the website. Think about how pages are linked and organized hierarchically. * **Page Speed and Performance:** How quickly pages load. This is a crucial user experience factor and a ranking signal. Core Web Vitals are central here. * **Mobile-Friendliness:** Making sure the website is fully responsive and provides a good experience on all devices, especially mobile. * **Structured Data (Schema Markup):** Helping search engines understand the context of content on a page by adding specific code. This can lead to rich results in search. * **HTTPS and Security:** Ensuring the website is secure with an SSL certificate. * **Duplicate Content Issues:** Identifying and resolving instances where similar content appears on multiple URLs, which can dilute ranking power. * **Canonicalization:** Specifying the preferred version of a page when multiple URLs can access the same content. * **URL Structure:** Creating clean, descriptive, and user-friendly URLs. * **International SEO:** For sites targeting multiple countries or languages, this involves things like Hreflang tags and ccTLDs. Essentially, technical SEO is the **foundation** upon which good content and effective link building can build. Without a solid technical SEO base, even the best content can struggle to rank.

Technical SEO can be approached in many different ways. This entirely depends on what is needed for your website. Strikingly, it is mostly larger websites that often struggle with technical problems. This is because complex operating systems are often used, and there is more room for errors. Simpler websites built with, for example, WordPress run a much lower risk of technical problems. 

In terms of technical optimization, you can consider the following: 

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