Fix your technical SEO for a major traffic boost. Our 9 simple tips help you improve site health and climb the rankings. Learn how to rank higher now

Fix Your Technical SEO: 9 Tips for a Major Traffic Boost

Is your website’s traffic flatlining? You’re creating amazing content and building links, but your rankings just won’t budge. If this sounds familiar, the culprit might be hiding behind the scenes: your technical SEO.

Think of your website like a house. Your content is the beautiful furniture and decor. But if the foundation is cracked, the plumbing is leaky, and the wiring is a mess, nobody will want to stay for long. In the world of websites, technical SEO is that foundation, ensuring everything runs smoothly for both users and search engines.

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your site's infrastructure to ensure search engines can effectively crawl, index, and understand your content. When you ignore it, you’re essentially telling Google, "My content is great, but good luck finding it!" This leads to stagnant traffic, poor user experience, and wasted marketing efforts.

But don't worry. You don't need to be a developer to fix the most common issues. In this guide, we’ll walk you through 9 actionable technical SEO tips that can give your website the major traffic boost it deserves.

Tip 1: Master Crawling and Indexing

Why You Can't Rank If You Can't Be Found

Before your site can rank for anything, Google needs to perform two crucial steps:

• Crawling: This is the discovery process. Google sends out its bots (called "spiders" or "Googlebot") to follow links and find new or updated pages on the web.
• Indexing: After crawling a page, Google analyzes its content and stores it in its massive database, the Google index. Think of it like a librarian adding a new book to the library's catalog.

If Google can't crawl or index your pages, they are invisible in search results. All other SEO efforts are completely wasted.

How to Check Your Index Status

Your best friend for this task is the Pages report in Google Search Console (GSC), a free tool that shows you exactly how Google sees your site.

1. Log in to your Google Search Console account.
2. In the left-hand menu, navigate to Indexing > Pages.
3. You’ll see a graph categorizing your pages into "Not indexed" and "Indexed."

Pay close attention to the reasons listed under "Not indexed." Some are normal (like pages you’ve intentionally excluded), but others signal critical problems that need immediate attention.

Actionable Fixes for Common Indexing Issues

• Check your robots.txt file: This file tells search engines which pages they shouldn't crawl. Sometimes, a misplaced Disallow directive can accidentally block important pages. Look for lines like Disallow: /blog/ that might be preventing your posts from being seen.
• Find and remove rogue noindex tags: A noindex tag is a piece of code that explicitly tells Google not to add a page to its index. Search your page’s HTML source code for <meta name="robots" content="noindex">. If you find this on a page you want to rank, remove it.
• Use the URL Inspection Tool: If a specific page isn’t indexed, paste its URL into the search bar at the top of GSC. The tool will tell you its current status. If it's not indexed, you can click "Request Indexing" to prompt Google to crawl it.

Tip 2: Supercharge Your Site with Core Web Vitals

What Are Core Web Vitals and Why Do They Matter?

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific metrics Google uses to measure a page's real-world user experience. They answer questions like: Is the site fast? Is it responsive? Is it visually stable?

These are the three main components:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. How long does it take for the largest element to become visible? Aim for under 2.5 seconds.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity. How long does it take for the site to respond to a user's first click or tap? Aim for under 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. Do elements on the page jump around as it loads? Aim for a score under 0.1.

A poor Core Web Vitals score tells Google your site offers a frustrating user experience, which can directly harm your rankings.

Tools to Measure Your Core Web Vitals

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Enter any URL and get a detailed report on its performance and suggestions for improvement.
• Google Search Console: The Core Web Vitals report in GSC shows you how your entire site performs based on real user data.
• GTmetrix: A popular third-party tool that provides in-depth performance analysis.

Quick Wins to Improve Your Scores

• For LCP: Compress your images before uploading them. Use modern image formats like WebP. Enable "lazy loading" so images below the fold only load when a user scrolls to them.
• For FID: Heavy JavaScript is often the culprit. Minimize or defer non-critical JavaScript files so they don't block the main content from loading.
• For CLS: This is often the easiest to fix. Always specify dimensions (width and height) for images, videos, and ad slots. This tells the browser to reserve space for the element, preventing the layout from shifting when it finally loads.

Tip 3: Embrace a Mobile-First World

Understanding Mobile-First Indexing

It's official: Google now operates on a mobile-first index. This means Google primarily uses the mobile version of your website for indexing and ranking—even for searches performed on a desktop.

A clunky, slow, or hard-to-use mobile site will drag down your rankings across the board. Your website must provide a seamless experience on mobile devices.

How to Test Your Site's Mobile-Friendliness

1. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test: This simple tool will tell you in seconds if your page is considered mobile-friendly.
2. GSC Mobile Usability Report: Found under the "Experience" section in Google Search Console, this report will flag site-wide mobile usability issues, such as "Text too small to read" or "Clickable elements too close together."

Best Practices for a Seamless Mobile Experience

• Use a responsive design: This is the number one rule. A responsive website automatically adjusts its layout to fit any screen size, from a small phone to a large desktop monitor.
• Ensure large tap targets: Make sure buttons and links are large enough and have enough space around them to be easily tapped with a finger.
• Avoid intrusive pop-ups: Full-screen pop-ups that block the main content are especially frustrating on mobile and can lead to a ranking penalty.

Tip 4: Secure Your Site with HTTPS

Why HTTPS is a Non-Negotiable Ranking Factor

HTTPS is the secure version of the old HTTP protocol. The "S" stands for "Secure" and means that data exchanged between a user's browser and your website is encrypted.

Here’s why it’s essential:

• Trust: Browsers like Google Chrome actively flag non-HTTPS sites with a "Not Secure" warning in the address bar, which can scare away visitors.
• Security: It protects your users' information, which is critical if you have contact forms or e-commerce functionality.
• Ranking Signal: Google confirmed years ago that HTTPS is a lightweight ranking signal. Given two otherwise equal sites, the secure one has an edge.

Making the Switch and Checking for Errors

Getting an SSL certificate (which enables HTTPS) is easier and cheaper than ever. Many web hosts offer free SSL certificates from providers like Let's Encrypt.

After you've made the switch, you must check for "mixed content" errors. This happens when an HTTPS page tries to load insecure resources (like an image or script) over HTTP. You can use a free tool like Why No Padlock? to scan your site for these errors and fix them by updating the resource URLs to HTTPS.

Tip 5: Build a Logical Site Architecture

What is Site Architecture?

Site architecture is how your website's pages are structured and linked together. A good architecture makes it easy for both users and search engines to find content quickly. The goal is to create a logical, shallow structure where any page can be reached within a few clicks from the homepage.

The Power of a "Flat" Structure and Internal Linking

A flat, logical structure is far superior to a deep, confusing one:

• Deep: Home > Services > Digital Marketing > SEO > Technical SEO > This Page (Too many clicks!)
• Flat: Home > Technical SEO > This Page (Much better!)

Internal links—links from one page on your site to another—are the glue that holds your architecture together. They help search engines understand the relationship between your pages and pass authority (often called "link equity") throughout your site.

How to Implement Topic Clusters

A powerful way to structure your content is by using topic clusters. This model involves:

1. A Pillar Page: A comprehensive, long-form guide covering a broad topic (e.g., "The Ultimate Guide to Technical SEO").
2. Cluster Content: Several shorter, more specific articles that cover subtopics in detail (e.g., "How to Fix Core Web Vitals," "What is Schema Markup?").

The pillar page links out to all the cluster pages, and each cluster page links back to the pillar page. This creates a tightly-knit, contextually relevant hub of content that signals your expertise to Google.

Tip 6: Hunt Down and Eliminate Duplicate Content

How Duplicate Content Confuses Search Engines

Duplicate content occurs when identical or "substantially similar" content exists on multiple URLs. This confuses search engines. When Google finds two identical pages, it has to choose which one to rank, which often dilutes the ranking power of both.

Common causes include:

• HTTP vs. HTTPS versions of a page
• WWW vs. non-WWW versions (e.g., www.site.com vs. site.com)
• URL parameters used for tracking or filtering (e.g., .../page?sessionid=123)
• Printer-friendly versions of pages

Using Canonical Tags to Signal Your Preferred URL

The best way to solve duplicate content issues is with the canonical tag (rel="canonical"). This is a small snippet of HTML code that tells search engines which URL is the "master" copy.

For example, you would add this tag to the <head> section of the duplicate page:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.yourdomain.com/preferred-page-url" />

This tells Google, "Hey, this page is just a copy. Please pass all ranking signals and credit to the original version at this URL."

When to Use 301 Redirects Instead

For cases where you are permanently consolidating pages (like moving from HTTP to HTTPS or merging two similar articles), a 301 redirect is the better solution. A 301 redirect permanently sends both users and search engine bots from an old URL to a new one, passing along most of its ranking power.

Tip 7: Implement Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Stand Out in the SERPs with Rich Snippets

Structured data, often called schema markup, is a standardized vocabulary of code you can add to your site's HTML. It doesn't change how your page looks to users, but it gives search engines a much deeper understanding of your content's context.

The reward? Rich snippets. These are enhanced search results that show extra information, such as:

• Star ratings for a product or review.
• A dropdown of questions for an FAQ page.
• Cooking times and calories for a recipe.

Rich snippets make your listing stand out on the search results page, which can dramatically increase your click-through rate (CTR) even if your ranking doesn't change.

Common and High-Impact Schema Types

• FAQ Schema: Perfect for pages with a question-and-answer format.
• How-to Schema: Use for step-by-step guides and tutorials.
• Article Schema: Helps Google understand details about your blog posts, like the author and publication date.
• Review Schema: Essential for pages that feature reviews, allowing you to display star ratings in the SERPs.

Tools to Generate and Test Schema

You don't need to write the code by hand. Use these free tools:

• Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD) by Merkle: A simple tool where you fill out a form and it generates the code for you.
• Google’s Rich Results Test: Paste your URL or code here to see if it's implemented correctly and eligible for rich snippets.

Tip 8: Optimize Your XML Sitemap and Robots.txt File

The XML Sitemap: Your Website's Roadmap

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important, indexable pages on your website. It acts as a roadmap, helping search engines find and crawl your content more efficiently.

Best Practices:

• Keep it clean: Only include URLs that you want to be indexed and that return a 200 "OK" status code. Exclude noindexed pages, redirected pages, and 404s.
• Keep it updated: Your sitemap should automatically update when you publish new content. Most SEO plugins (like Yoast or Rank Math) handle this for you.
• Submit it to GSC: Make sure you’ve submitted your sitemap's URL (usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) in the Sitemaps section of Google Search Console.

The Robots.txt File: The Rules of Engagement

The robots.txt file is a simple text file located in your site's root directory. It tells search engine crawlers which parts of your site they should not access. This is useful for blocking private admin areas, thank-you pages, or internal search results.

Best Practices:

• Don't use it to block pages from being indexed. Use a noindex tag for that. A blocked page can still be indexed if it's linked to from elsewhere.
• Don't block important CSS or JavaScript files, as this can prevent Google from rendering your page correctly.
• Add a line that points to your XML sitemap: Sitemap: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Tip 9: Eradicate Crawl Errors and Broken Links

Why 404s and Server Errors Hurt Your SEO

• 404 "Not Found" errors (broken links) create a dead end for users and search engines, leading to a poor user experience.
• Server errors (5xx) indicate a problem with your server, preventing anyone from accessing the page.

Both of these issues waste your "crawl budget"—the finite amount of resources and time Google allocates to crawling your site. If Googlebot keeps hitting dead ends, it may not get to your important content.

Finding Errors with Google Search Console

The Pages report in GSC is your go-to tool for finding these errors. It will list all the URLs that returned a 404 or a server error, allowing you to create a priority list of what to fix.

A Simple Strategy for Fixing Broken Links

1. For internal broken links: Simply edit the page and update the link to point to the correct URL.
2. For external broken links (a backlink from another website pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists): You can't edit their site, but you can reclaim that link equity. Implement a 301 redirect from the old, broken URL to the most relevant live page on your site.

Conclusion: Technical SEO is a Journey, Not a Destination

Fixing your technical SEO isn't a one-time task; it's an ongoing process of maintenance and improvement. But the payoff is enormous. A technically sound website is faster, more user-friendly, and easier for Google to understand—and reward with higher rankings and more organic traffic.

You don't have to tackle everything at once. Start small. Pick just one tip from this list, like checking your Core Web Vitals or looking for 404 errors in GSC, and take action today. By making regular technical SEO audits a part of your routine, you'll ensure your website's foundation is rock-solid, allowing all your other marketing efforts to finally reach their full potential.

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