Maintaining a clean and well-functioning website is crucial for the sustained SEO performance of an online presence.
Regardless of the strength of your website’s SEO groundwork, you’re likely to encounter various problems and mistakes each time you carry out a technical SEO review. Moreover, Google frequently releases updates that can sometimes make certain methods obsolete or subject to penalties.
Maintaining a website in “good condition” is an ongoing effort and should be taken seriously. With website audit service you can get insights on your website’s SEO health, as the tool analyzes 120+ factors.
What does the term “website health” mean?
The overall condition of a website is usually assessed based on how solid its core structure is and the number of problems and errors present at any moment.
Just like you take care of your health, it is advisable to carry out regular inspections and checks to ensure that everything is working correctly and nothing is damaged.
A website that is healthy and clean can provide several SEO benefits.
- Higher search engine rankings
- More authority, authority, and trust
- Improved experience for those visiting the website.
- Increased number of transactions, higher sales figures, and increased revenue.
How can you improve the health and cleanliness of your online presence?
Below you’ll find several factors that can affect the condition of your website, along with practical steps to take for significant enhancements.
- Crawlability
If Google can’t initially find the pages on your website, it definitely can’t
catalog and place them on search engine results pages. As a result, your website does not receive traffic from search engines.
Initially, you need to make sure that Google can find and navigate to each page you are about to open. To reduce these risks, you need to resolve such problems. Integrating a sitemap can greatly improve your site’s crawling efficiency.
Also, ensure every page you intend for Google to crawl and position in the search engine results pages (SERPs) can be indexed. Just check your robots.txt file and look at all non-indexed meta tags on the pages of your site to ensure that you are not inadvertently preventing access to key pages.
- Internal 404s
Internal communications play an important role in an effective SEO approach. These links help both Google bots and visitors find your pages and navigate to different parts of your website.
However, there are times when these connections do not work. This results in 404 errors, which can irritate users. By fixing any broken internal links that are causing 404 errors on your site, you can greatly improve the overall health of your site.
- Is your website accessible via HTTP or does it support HTTPS?
Nowadays, it’s important to prioritize website security, as it not only protects against threats but can also have a direct impact on where a site ranks in search engine results.
If you are currently using the HTTPS version, be sure to install an SSL certificate and switch to HTTPS to improve the security and integrity of your website.
- Website loading speed
The performance of your website significantly impacts its overall functionality and the experience of your users. Furthermore, if your site takes excessively long to load, it can lead to lower search engine positions, reduced rates of converting visitors into customers, and lower sales and earnings.
Evaluate your site’s page loading speed and take appropriate actions to improve your site’s performance.
- Duplicate content
Having repetitive material on your website may also lead to potential problems related to the site’s overall wellness and cleanliness.
Firstly, Google disapproves of identical content repeated across different pages of your website. Should your website contain pages with the same information, achieving a higher position on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for those particular pages—and potentially for your whole website—can be challenging.
Secondly, when identical content is present, it can create uncertainty for Google as to which pages to rank higher and prioritize for specific search terms. Additionally, this can cause problems where your content competes against itself, known as content cannibalization, which can harm the overall well-being and cleanliness of your website.
Thirdly, replicated content worsens the user experience. Visitors won’t find fresh ideas, resulting in lower engagement rates, which can send unfavorable signals to search engines like Google about the quality of a site’s SEO.
Conclusion
To maintain a steady flow of organic visitors to your website, it’s important to keep your site in good condition and well-maintained.
Implement the suggestions outlined in this article by focusing on these five key aspects that can lead to significant improvements, increased online presence, and organic traffic.
