A Complete Guide + Checklist

Yes, having pages optimised for search engines is a step in the right direction, but if Google can’t find and index them, your marketing efforts will be in vain. That’s where technical SEO comes in.

Technical SEO may seem intimidating to you, but the fundamentals are straightforward. This section will guide you in setting up your website for technical success and monitoring its SEO health over time.

A. Site Structure

Site structure refers to how your website is organised; this is important for SEO because it helps:

• Visitors navigate your website easily.
• Google discover and index all your pages.

Here’s a good example of how a tradie website might be structured for SEO:

• Homepage
  • Service Pages (e.g., house washing, pressure washing, concrete sealing)
    • Sub-Service Pages (e.g., high-pressure cleaning, driveway sealing)
  • Location Pages (e.g., Brisbane, Sydney)
  • About Page
  • Contact Page

Note

You can also interlink relevant pages. For example, if you offer pressure washing in specific locations, mention and link to those areas on your pressure washing service page. 

B. Use HTTPS

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure way for visitors to access your website. It’s important to understand because it’s been a lightweight ranking factor since 2014. Secure websites display a lock icon in the search bar.

How to check if you’re using HTTPS:

• Visit your website and check the search bar. If you see a lock icon before the web address, your site is secure.

If your website is not yet using HTTPS, ask your web developer/ SEO specialist to implement an SSL certificate to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. This adds security for users and gives your site a slight ranking boost.

C. Educador Your Websites Health

Your website’s SEO health affects its ranking and visibility; issues like broken links or slow-loading pages can harm your search rankings, but more severe issues, such as a noindex tag, can stop your page from appearing in search results entirely.

For example, the following code tells search engines not to index the page:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex” />

This may seem minor, but it would prevent Google from showing your page, even if it’s ranked #1.

There are so many technical SEO tools out there to help you celador your site’s health, so instead of listing a couple, it would be better for you to use what you already have rather than spend more money on this resource.