What we do is a type of magic to many people. It’s the results that count, and we get results. But you may wonder sometimes, what we’re actually doing to improve your search ranking, visitors, and conversions. If you’re the curious (or skeptical) type, this series is for you.
Technical optimization refers to the way your website’s infrastructure is set up and maintained. Below are the six main components of this type of optimization.
Page Speed / Load Time
Internet users are impatient and expect a web page to appear instantly. In order for this to happen, the amount of data being sent from the website’s host to the user’s browser needs to be big enough to look great, but small enough to speed through the network. Images, for example, can appear large and clear on a screen, but the size of the packet of data that makes that image appear can often be reduced. The smaller amount of data can travel faster, making it appear more quickly.
Content style sheets (CSS) are the coding that tells browsers how to format the page, which font to use, where to place the text and images, that sort of thing. These style sheets also have to travel from the host to the user, so keeping those clean and small, while still doing the job, is also important.
Using a technique called caching, and a multi-route pathway referred to as a content delivery network or CDN, also speed up load times. Caching allows some of the content to remain on one of the servers in the CDN closer to the user, so that returning to a previously viewed page is super fast.
Core Web Vitals
These are basically Google’s way of measuring how successful a site is in implementing the factors above. Google’s assessment impacts the search ranking of the site.
Crawlability and Indexability
Search engines like Google, also need to know what your website is about and what kind of content it contains. It does this by sending bots to your site to look around and then categorizing it. The easier this is for the bots, the better. We help the bots by ensuring things like clean, logical, sequential code, and a well-organized sitemap behind the scene.
Responsive Design
With so many different types and sizes of internet connected devices, a website needs to be able to adjust itself automatically. Specific coding is needed for things like rearranging the layout, and including touch or voice navigation.
Secure Protocol
While the technology has changed over the years, to maintain a secure site, the data being transferred needs to be encrypted. This is to ensure that credit card information, for example, isn’t intercepted while moving between the host and the user.
Hosting & Server Performance
Lastly, to reap the benefits of technical optimization, you need to have an expert hosting agency who you can rely on to provide proper server configuration and maintenance.
