Technical SEO Issues

When you hear “technical SEO,” you might think of complicated code and complex problems. But it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Technical SEO is simply about making your website easy for search engines to crawl and understand.

This guide will show you how to fix the most common technical issues, starting with the ones that matter most for your rankings.

The Most Critical Technical SEO Issues (Fix These Now)

If your website isn’t working properly, search engines can’t see it. This means you need to fix these problems before you can even think about ranking.

Indexing and Crawling Problems

If Google can’t find and list your web pages, you won’t rank for anything. First, you need to make sure Google has a map of your site, called a sitemap. You also need to ensure you aren’t accidentally blocking search engines from seeing your pages with your robots.txt file or a “no-index” tag.

No HTTPS Certificate

An HTTPS certificate secures your website. If you don’t have one, Google may be hesitant to recommend your site to users, and browsers like Chrome will warn visitors that your site is unsafe. To fix this, simply install an SSL/HTTPS certificate from your hosting provider. You should see a padlock icon in your browser’s address bar when you visit your site.

Duplicate Content

Sometimes, duplicate content errors happen for reasons you might not expect. This includes having two versions of your site (one with www and one without) or having a single page appear on multiple URLs. When this happens, Google gets confused about which page to rank. The best fix is to use a 301 redirect to send one version to the other and to use canonical tags to tell Google which page is the original.

Incorrect Hreflang Tags

If you have an international website, you must use hreflang tags to tell search engines which language and region each page is for. If these tags are set up incorrectly, Google may not show the right version of your page to the right user.

Broken or Confusing Links

Broken links, both internal and external, can hurt your website. Since search engines use links to understand your site, a broken link wastes their resources and can lead to a bad user experience. To fix a broken link, simply update the link or use a 301 redirect to send users and search engines to the right page.

Key Issues for a Better Website

Once you’ve handled the basics, you can focus on these issues to improve your site’s speed and user experience.

Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

How fast your website loads is a crucial ranking factor. A slow website frustrates visitors and can cause them to leave, hurting your SEO.

To improve your page speed, you can optimize your images, compress your files, and remove any unnecessary code that slows down your site. The goal is to make your website smaller and faster for users on all devices.

Missing Meta Descriptions and Alt Tags

This is an easy fix that can make a big difference.

• Alt tags: These are descriptions of your images. They help users with visual impairments understand your content and can help your images rank in Google Images.
• Meta descriptions: These are short summaries that appear below your page title in search results. While they aren’t a direct ranking factor, a good meta description can encourage users to click on your link.

Our AI Image Alt Text Generator can help you create perfect descriptions for your images. You can also use our SEO Meta Description Generator to write a compelling summary that gets more clicks.

Troubles with Structured Data

Structured data helps search engines understand what your content is about. For example, it can tell Google that a page is a product, an article, or a recipe. If your structured data is missing or has errors, you might not get “rich results” like star ratings or featured snippets.