The Technical SEO for Tradies - Part 3
The Technical SEO part is all about ensuring that your site is well-optimised for search engines, making it easy for Google to crawl and index important pages. It also involves evaluating your site's performance in terms of speed, page experience, and core web vitals, all of which are crucial factors for search engine rankings.
Indexation - Robots.txt and Google Search Console
Web crawlers or bots, such as Googlebot, browse the internet to index web pages. If your website is not indexed by Google, it won't appear in search results. Checking the indexation status of a website in the robots.txt file and Google Search Console is one of the first steps in assessing site hygiene.
To address this issue, it's important to check the robots.txt file to ensure that important pages are not accidentally blocked from being indexed, and to review Google Search Console for any indexing errors.
Here are some suggestions to check the indexation status of your website and audit indexing status for URLs:
Check if the website has a robots.txt file (e.g., https://www.leannewong.co/robots.txt). Review the 'Disallow' commands in robots.txt to ensure that important content is not accidentally blocked from being crawled and indexed on Google. Are there any 'Disallow' commands that accidentally block content that should be indexed on Google?
Are there any 'Disallow' commands for important content sections with a high number of backlinks?
Review Google Search Console's Coverage report to check for errors: - Check if Submitted URL is blocked by robots.txt.
- Check if Submitted URL is marked by 'noindex.'
- Check if the URL is indexed, but blocked by robots.txt.
You should aim to have 0 errors in these checks.
Indexation
- Request Indexing may take "several hours to several weeks" for Google to index new or updated content. If important pages on your website are taking a long time to get indexed, you can manually request indexing through Google Search Console. When you publish a new blog post or make changes to your page content, you can ask Google to crawl your page and request indexing.
This is the most straightforward way to expedite the indexing process.
Here are the steps:
1. Go to Google Search Console.
2. Click on your website property.
3. Click on URL Inspection.
4. Paste the URL you want Google to index into the search bar.
5. Wait for Google to check the URL.
6. Click the 'Request Indexing' button.
In 2018, Google prioritised user experience by making speed a ranking factor. In 2021, a major update for core web vitals was released. To assess the website's speed and user experience factors, I would recommend using speed testing tools such as Google Analytics, Google Page Speed Insights, and Google Search Console.
Google Page Speed Insights is a comprehensive tool provided by Google, offering a detailed report on speed and core web vitals diagnostics and opportunities. It contains over 30 checkpoints and aims to help achieve a green 90/100 score. The choice of web hosting and plugins can greatly impact web performance and site speed.
The top web hosting company to use is - Go Green Domains | Reliable Australian Web Hosting Services
Page Experience
When it comes to Page Experience, it's crucial to pay attention to certain signals that can significantly impact your website's performance. These signals, which include HTTPS, Mobile Usability, and Core Web Vitals, can be found in Google Search Console. Among these signals, HTTPS is relatively easy to address, as most web hosting plans provide HTTPS installation, making it simple to set up. Mobile usability, on the other hand, focuses on how well your content is displayed on mobile devices, and employing a responsive design often resolves many of these issues. Core Web Vitals, the newest addition to page experience signals, have been a Google ranking factor since June 2021. They encompass aspects such as page load time, page interactivity, and visual stability.
To get started, it's advisable to review the Page Experience report in Google Search Console to identify any issues that can be easily addressed, such as setting up HTTPS with the support of your hosting team or implementing a mobile responsive theme design. It's also important to assess the scope of pages impacted by core web vitals and determine the extent of any issues, classifying them as "Needs Improvement" or "Poor." This comprehensive approach will help in addressing and optimising the page experience for better performance.
If you need any extra help with optimising your SEO for Tradies - after reading my 3 Blog Posts. Visit Tradie Marketing | Rock Solid Marketer or call your local Rock Solid Marketer in Brisbane on 0493 419 306.
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