What is Technical SEO and Why is it Important? - 4.1. SEO Course by Ahrefs

Summary

In this final module of Ahrefs' SEO course for beginners, Sam Oh introduces technical SEO, focusing on the basics to help you maintain your website and ensure search engines can discover and index your pages. Key topics covered include the importance of avoiding mistakes like using the noindex meta tag, understanding robots.txt files, generating sitemaps, managing redirects, and utilizing canonical tags to prevent duplicate content. The course aims to equip beginners with the foundational knowledge necessary for effective website optimization, ensuring better visibility and search engine performance.

Takeaways

• 😀 Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website to help search engines find, understand, and index your pages.
• 😀 For beginners, technical SEO doesn't need to be overly technical. This module focuses on the basics for regular website maintenance.
• 😀 If search engines can't properly access or index your pages, your site won't rank or be found.
• 😀 The noindex meta tag tells search engines not to add a page to their index. Be cautious, as it can unintentionally remove pages from Google's search results.
• 😀 Robots.txt is a file that provides instructions to search engine crawlers on which parts of your site they can or cannot access.
• 😀 The two important directives in robots.txt are 'User-agent' (for defining crawlers) and 'Disallow' (for blocking access to specific pages).
• 😀 A sitemap is an XML file that lists important URLs on your site and helps search engines crawl your site more efficiently.
• 😀 Redirects are used to consolidate signals from one URL to another, such as when consolidating outdated pages with current versions.
• 😀 The canonical tag helps solve duplicate content issues by telling search engines which URL is the preferred version for a page.
• 😀 CMS platforms like WordPress often handle many technical SEO issues automatically, making it easier for beginners to manage SEO.
• 😀 Indexing is crucial for SEO; if your pages aren't indexed, other aspects of SEO won't matter, so it’s important to ensure proper indexing.

Q & A

What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website to help search engines find, understand, and index its pages effectively. It involves improving the backend aspects of a site, such as its code, structure, and accessibility.

Why is technical SEO important?

Technical SEO is important because if search engines can't access, read, understand, or index your website's pages, it will be impossible for your site to rank in search results or even be found by users.

What is the 'noindex' meta tag and when should it be used?

The 'noindex' meta tag tells search engines not to index a page. It should be used when you don't want certain pages to appear in search results, such as during website development or for pages with minimal SEO value.

How can a 'noindex' tag negatively affect your site?

If the 'noindex' tag is mistakenly left on a page after a site redesign, it can prevent that page from being indexed by search engines, causing it to be excluded from search results.

What is robots.txt and why is it important?

Robots.txt is a file placed in the root domain of a website that gives search engine crawlers instructions about which parts of the site they can and cannot access. It is important for controlling crawler behavior and preventing search engines from indexing sensitive or irrelevant pages.

What is the difference between 'User-agent' and 'Disallow' in a robots.txt file?

The 'User-agent' directive specifies which search engine crawler the rule applies to, while 'Disallow' indicates which pages or directories should not be crawled by the specified user-agent.

Why would you want to block certain pages using robots.txt?

You might want to block pages such as login forms, admin pages, or other non-public sections of your site that you don't want indexed or crawled by search engines to protect sensitive data or conserve crawl budget.

What is a sitemap and why is it useful for SEO?

A sitemap is an XML file that lists the important URLs on your website. It helps search engines like Google to crawl and index your site more effectively by providing them with a clear structure of the most important pages, images, videos, and other files.

How can you submit a sitemap to Google?

You can submit a sitemap to Google through Google Search Console by using the 'Sitemap' section, where you can upload the XML file or provide its URL so Google can crawl the site more intelligently.

What is the purpose of redirects in SEO?

Redirects are used to send visitors and search engines from one URL to another. They consolidate link signals and ensure that search engines pass SEO value from an old URL to a new one, preventing duplicate content issues and preserving ranking power.

What is a canonical tag and how does it help with duplicate content?

A canonical tag is an HTML snippet that tells search engines which version of a page is preferred when there are multiple versions of the same content. It helps to prevent duplicate content issues by consolidating link equity to the preferred URL.

What should you do if you have multiple versions of a page, such as HTTP and HTTPS?

To prevent duplicate content, you should use a canonical tag to indicate which version of the page (HTTP or HTTPS) is preferred, ensuring that search engines prioritize the correct URL and avoid splitting link signals.

Do content management systems (CMS) like WordPress handle technical SEO for you?

Yes, CMS platforms like WordPress often handle many aspects of technical SEO automatically, such as generating sitemaps and managing redirects. However, it's still important to be aware of technical SEO issues and make adjustments as needed.