Technical SEO mistakes are the silent killer of campaigns. They not only disrupt user experience but also make Google hate your website.
Keep the following fact in your mind as you read this article: When users don't like your website, Google doesn't like your website.
So, the goal of technical SEO is make the user experience flawless on your website.
Fixing the following mistakes will help you achieve that goal:
1. Your website is painfully slow
A slow site is a bad site.
Half of all Web users expect a site to load in two seconds or less. Most abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load.
And that's not even the worst news... A one-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.
If users hate websites that are slow, then Google does as well. And so, having a slow website will not only affect your SEO results but also hurt your bottom-line.
The solution? Speed up your site.
To test the current speed of your website, use Pingdom or Google's website speed tool. Here are a couple of articles to help you increase the speed of your site:
- "11 Low-Hanging Fruits for Increasing Website Speed (and Conversions)"
- "15 Tips to Speed Up Your Website"
2. You are suffering from keyword cannibalization via on-page optimization
Keyword "cannibalization" occurs when two pages on your site compete for the same keyword. It can damage your results because it forces Google to choose what page to rank.
Two things happen when you let Google's algorithm decide: First, it may choose the wrong page; second, it may not choose any page at all.
If you confuse Google, you will not rank. Its algorithm is a machine, so you have to guide it and force it to understand your site the way you want it to.
You have two solutions to fixing keyword cannibalization:
- Merge two pages into one.
- Unoptimize one of the pages.
3. You have keyword cannibalization from your internal linking
Now you understand that having more than one page optimized for the same keyword isn't a great idea. But there is one other sneaky keyword cannibalization killer that often goes unnoticed: Using the same keyword-rich anchor text for more than one page.
Check out this diagram:
You want to avoid the second scenario: Page B is targeting the keyword phrase "dog toy safety"; it wouldn't make sense to hit that page with a "dog toys" anchor, because Page A is targeting that keyword.
This is an easy mistake to make, but it can cost you big. As I said, avoid confusing Google. Be explicit and make it undeniable what every page on your site is about.
(The remaining technical errors I discuss will rob your site of precious site authority, which is one of the most important factors for ranking.)
4. Redirects are silently stealing your site's authority
Two types of redirect issues can hurt your results:
- 302 redirects
- Redirect chains
302 Redirects
Google understands a 302 redirect as "temporary" redirect; 302s do NOT pass authority.
So your goal needs to be changing any 302s you have to 301 redirects. Google understands 301 redirects are "permanent" redirects and will pass site authority through them.
Here's a great visual from Moz:
To identify 302 redirects, go into Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Since I will be explaining redirect chains in a second, you should change the following setting now.
Go to "Configuration" and "Spider":
Go to the "Advanced" tab and make sure "Always Follow Redirects" is selected:
The first step toward finding 302 redirects is to enter your URL and press "Start":