5 Technical SEO Problems That Are Wrecking Your Site
When most of our clients think of search engine optimization (SEO), the first things that come to mind are keywords, content, and links. All of these are aspects of on-site optimization that any guest to the site can see, and do, in fact, impact a site’s SEO. However, these pieces of the puzzle could look great on your site, but errors in the background could be wreaking total havoc in the shadows. Here are 5 of the most common technical SEO problems that could be the main reasons why your site isn’t ranking well, and how you can fix them!
1. Site Speed
Search engines use your site’s speed to determine how high it appears in the local rankings. So even if your site is responding 2 seconds too slow, Google will reduce the number of crawls that it performs on your site; hence, the decline in rankings. Fortunately, simple fixes can increase your site’s speed and get you back on the SERPS. These solutions include:
- A visit to Google PageSpeed Insights
- Image optimization
- Browser caching
- Minifying CSS and JavaScript
2. Robots.TXT
Imperfections in a Robots.txt.file can ruin a site’s organic traffic. Something as small as a misplaced symbol during development can cause a lot of ranking problems. If you type in your site address and add “/robots.txt,” only to find the dreaded disallow message, it is time to talk to your developer and have the error corrected.
3. Terrible Text-to-HTML Ratio
Although text-to-HTML ratio isn’t necessarily a ranking factor, low text-to-HTML ratio does negatively impact the user experience (which is a huge ranking factor). Essentially, if the backend of your site contains more code than actual text, problems like slow loading and hidden text could be dragging your site down. To fix this problem, have a competent SEO team review your JavaScript and CSS and insert relevant, on-site text where it belongs.
4. Duplicate Content
We see this problem with e-commerce sites that have hundreds of pages that make up their website. Even if your business only has a few pages on it, duplicate content is a problem you may have. Even from your own site, copied content could get your business completely removed from the SERPS if Google finds it. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, original content gets you ranking!
5. Missing Alt Tags
Alt tags are the descriptive text that should accompany each of your images. Not even Google wants to read that long file name that images automatically produce. Also, if there is a problem with the image itself, an accompanying alt tag will help Google crawlers understand what exactly should be in that space on your site. Adding alt tags to images is an easy fix. Simply locate the image in your HTML and type in the desired text. It should look something like this: (WILL INSERT IMAGE HERE).
Dallas SEO Dogs Catches SEO Issues Before They Become SEO Problems
A recent drop in search engine rankings could be due to SEO problems you can’t see on the surface. Don’t let backdoor technical errors crash your SEO rankings. The experienced SEO team at Dallas SEO Dogs can help ensure that your site remains functional from the inside, out. We’d love to get to know more about your company! Please fill out our form so that an associate can reach out to you within the next 24-hours!
