Why is Technical SEO Important?
This article was developed with assistance from ChatGPT, which helped to significantly reduce the time to answer the question “Why is Technical SEO important?”.
The answer from ChatGPT is very good and adequately addresses this query. I’ve added some additional thoughts — in particular because I feel that ChatGPT did not emphasize enough the benefit that Technical SEO delivers to people.
Table of Contents
Links lead nowhere, Slow load times, errors abound, SEO mourns site's fate.
Why Technical SEO Is Important
The Haiku above does a pretty good job of describing some of the Technical SEO problems a website may have and here we’ll look at this in more detail and try to uncover more reasons why Technical SEO is important.
Technical SEO is important because it helps search engines understand and crawl a website more effectively. This can lead to higher search engine rankings and more visibility for the website. Technical SEO includes optimizing elements such as the website’s structure, URLs, and tags, as well as ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the website is secure and can be accessed by both search engines and users with disabilities. By addressing these technical issues, a website can improve its search engine performance and overall user experience.
Technical SEO encompasses a wide range of elements that can affect a website’s visibility and performance in search engines. Some key areas that fall under technical SEO include:
- Website Structure: A well-structured website makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand the content on the site. This includes using a clear hierarchy of headings (H1, H2, etc.), as well as organizing content into sections and categories.
- URL Structure: Search engines use URLs to understand the structure of a website and the relationship between different pages. A clean, well-organized URL structure can help search engines understand the content of a page and how it fits into the overall website.
- Meta Tags: Meta tags provide information about a webpage to search engines. These include the title tag, which appears as the clickable headline in search engine results, and the meta description, which provides a brief summary of the page’s content. Properly optimized meta tags can improve a website’s click-through rate from search results.
- Mobile-Friendliness: With the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet, it’s more important than ever that websites are optimized for mobile. This includes using a responsive design that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes, as well as ensuring that all content and functionality is accessible on mobile devices.
- Page Speed: Search engines take page speed into account when ranking websites. A fast-loading website can improve the user experience and increase the chances of appearing higher in search results.
- Security: Search engines are placing more emphasis on the security of websites. Websites that use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) are considered more secure and may receive a boost in search engine rankings.
- Accessibility: Search engines are placing more emphasis on the accessibility of websites. Websites that are optimized for users with disabilities may receive a boost in search engine rankings.
By addressing these technical SEO factors, a website can improve its visibility and performance in search engines, which can ultimately lead to more traffic and conversions.
In my opinion this response misses the benefits that visitors receive from implementing solid Technical SEO practices on a given website and ensuring that the site health score is very good, and we’ll look at what this means in the next section.
ChatGPT seems to underemphasize the Human Element when answering the question “Why is Technical SEO Important?“
Technical SEO is not just for search engines. The response ChatGPT has provided above, while good, underemphasizes the point that not only do search engines benefit from Technical SEO but so do humans and this applies to every bullet point listed. User experience is only mentioned for Page Speed and Accessibility otherwise the focus is on search engines; the Meta Tags bullet point mentions the click-through rate and while we can infer that humans are performing the click-throughs this is, again, not explicitly stated.
It goes without saying that if any of the bullet points listed is lacking that not only will the visibility to search engines be less than ideal but the user experience may be negatively impacted as well.
Why is Technical SEO So Important to Humans?
In this section I’m going to attempt to answer the question “Why is Technical SEO Important to Humans?” given the same bullet points provided by ChatGPT above.
- Website Structure: A well-structured website makes it easier for people to understand your content.
- URL Structure: If a person glances at a URL can they tell what the URL points to, just by looking at it? If the answer is “no” then this is not helpful. A URL can and should contain metadata that explains to both search engines as well people what they may find if they click on a given link.
- Meta Tags: Meta tags can be very helpful when sharing links on Social Media platforms as well as applications such as Skype and WhatsApp. For example, web pages that support Twitter Cards and the Open Graph Protocol include additional information that positively impacts the rendering of links that people share with other people. In this example, Technical SEO can have a positive impact that extends outside of the website. We want every opportunity to engage with visitors and in this case sharing a link which appears in its raw form will not be as appealing to the person receiving it as one which includes meta data along with a relevant image.
- Mobile-Friendliness: If the content of a given webpage doesn’t render correctly on mobile and tablet devices then visitors may have trouble reading it and the visitors become frustrated and leave. If you’re selling something online their next stop may be your competitor.
- Page Speed: People take page speed into account because they’re simply not going to wait for your website to load. If you have an e-commerce website this translates directly to lost revenue as visitors become frustrated and take their business elsewhere. The web page performance engineering test report generated by WebPageTest.org below demonstrates several characteristics of a fast-loading web page — see also: Performance Engineering and WordPress Optimization.
- Security: People won’t transact business with a website that’s not secure.
- Accessibility: Websites that are optimized for users with disabilities will deliver content that can be consumed by all people who visit the website.
What did ChatGPT have to say about this? We’ll find out in the next section.
Why Is Technical SEO Important To Humans: The ChatGPT Response
Not satisfied with the initial answer, I asked ChatGPT “Why is Technical SEO important to humans?” and here’s the response I received — note that bold is mine:
Technical SEO is important to humans because it directly affects the user experience and ability to access information on a website. If a website has Technical SEO issues, it can lead to slow load times, broken links, and difficulty for search engines to crawl and index the content. This results in poor visibility in search engine results pages, reduced traffic, and decreased potential for conversions or sales.
In addition, Technical SEO can impact accessibility for users with disabilities, such as those using screen readers or other assistive technologies. Ensuring a website is technically optimized can create a better and more inclusive experience for all users, regardless of their abilities.
Overall, Technical SEO is important because it lays the foundation for a successful online presence, providing users with a seamless experience while maximizing the reach and visibility of the website.
This is a much more people-focused response, one which focuses on the benefits that humans receive from investing in Technical SEO.
What Are The Top Five Benefits Of Technical SEO?
The question “What Are The Top Five Benefits Of Technical SEO?” is summarized with help from ChatGPT below: 🤖
- Improved User Experience: Technical SEO ensures that websites are optimized for speed, navigation, and accessibility, resulting in a better user experience and increased satisfaction.
- Increased Visibility: Technical SEO improves a website’s ranking and visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), driving more organic traffic and leads to a website.
- Better Mobile Optimization: Technical SEO helps ensure that websites are optimized for mobile and tablet devices, improving the mobile experience and hence increasing the chances of appearing in mobile search results.
- Enhanced Crawlability: Technical SEO ensures that search engines can crawl a website and understand its content, improving the chances of the content being indexed and appearing in search results.
- Better Website Performance: Technical SEO helps websites to load faster and operate efficiently, improving the overall performance and reducing the risk of losing traffic or potential customers. 🤖
We can assume that a website with no attention given to Technical SEO is likely to experience the exact opposite of these benefits listed. For example visitors will encounter slow page load speed which continues to worsen over time, lower website ranking, lower visibility, and hence lower traffic, content that doesn’t render on mobile devices properly, and an overall lower satisfaction when visiting the website.
See Also
What are the top five misconceptions about Technical SEO?
Again we’re going to use ChatGPT to conduct some basic research in an effort to help identify some misconceptions about Technical SEO, and in this case we’re just going to focus on the top five, for now.
- Technical SEO is not necessary: Technical SEO is an important aspect of optimizing a website for search engines and should not be ignored. It lays the foundation for good search engine visibility and ensures that the website is accessible, crawlable and indexable by search engines.
- Technical SEO is only about keywords: Technical SEO covers a wide range of aspects, including site structure, crawlability, website speed, mobile optimization, and more. It’s not just about keywords.
- Technical SEO is only for developers: While developers play a critical role in the technical optimization of a website, marketers, content creators and business owners can also contribute to the process.
- Technical SEO is a one-time process: Technical SEO is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and updates to keep up with changes in search algorithms and user behavior.
- Technical SEO has no impact on rankings: Technical SEO can have a significant impact on a website’s ranking and visibility in search results. Proper technical optimization can help search engines understand the content on a website, improving its chances of ranking higher in search results.
My only issue with the response received from ChatGPT has to do with #2 “Technical SEO is only about keywords”. In my opinion, Technical SEO does not have much, if anything, to do with keywords — this is the realm of marketing-focused SEO and/or content engineering.
A website with poor Technical SEO is unlikely to rank well even if it has high-quality content and backlinks. Note also that the entire website is at risk here because Technical SEO issues can, in some cases, have an impact that spans the entire website.
What Are The Top Ten Misconceptions About Search Engine Optimization 
ChatGPT is proving to be pretty helpful for research and the answer to the aforementioned question is included below and is pretty good.
What would you include for the 12-20 misconceptions about Search Engine Optimization?
I’ve added my own opinion for # 11 so let me know yours in the comments!
1.) SEO is a one-time task: SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and improvement.
2.) Keyword stuffing is the key to ranking: Overloading a page with keywords is not only ineffective, but it is also penalized by search engines.
3.) Meta tags are the most important factor: Meta tags are still important, but they are just one of many ranking factors.
4.) Link building is dead: Link building is still an important factor for ranking, but it needs to be done with quality and relevance in mind.
5.) More content is always better: Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to content.
6.) You can buy your way to the top: Paid search ads can help increase visibility, but ranking organically is still the best way to build credibility and trust.
7.) Social media has no impact on SEO: Social signals, such as shares and likes, can contribute to a website’s overall online authority and help improve its rankings.
8.) Hidden text and links are effective: Such practices are considered unethical and are penalized by search engines.
9.) The faster the website, the better the SEO: Although website speed is a ranking factor, other factors, such as content quality and relevance, are more important.
10.) SEO is only for big companies: SEO is important for businesses of all sizes, as it can help increase visibility and attract potential customers.
11.) SEO is easy to learn.
In my opinion, SEO requires substantial effort to develop skills in and my position comes from spending considerable time developing content that should get decent performance, watching the performance, reworking content, repeating this process over and over, and watching the results (and the results can’t come fast enough, believe me).
Technical SEO overlaps to some degree with subjects such as software engineering, server administration, and web standards, further complicating the matter.
People who take SEO seriously will likely be using special tools and the learning curve for those applications takes time and they often require a monthly fee for usage. See also the section entitled “Why Is Technical SEO Hard?“.
Think SEO is easy? Think again.
Why Is Technical SEO Hard?
Below I’ve included some possible reasons why Technical SEO can be challenging for humans:
- Constant changes: Technical SEO involves keeping up with constant changes in search engine algorithms and updates to best practices. This requires continuous learning and adaptation to new technologies and techniques along with the latest updates and required changes to their websites.
- Technical expertise: Technical SEO requires a strong understanding of website development, coding using HTML, CSS, JavaScript (etc), along with server and web server configurations. Technical SEO often involves identifying and fixing technical issues that can impact website performance and search rankings. With the rise of mobile devices and different platforms, Technical SEO can become even more complex as websites must be optimized for various devices and platforms.
- Complex algorithms: Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to rank websites. These algorithms are not always transparent, making it difficult to understand what changes need to be made to improve a website’s ranking.
- Resource-intensive: Technical SEO can be resource-intensive, requiring significant time and effort to complete. It may also require working with other teams, such as developers or IT, to implement and test changes.
- Large websites: Technical SEO can become more complicated for larger websites with numerous pages and complex structures. It can be challenging to optimize every page on a website for search engines.
- Competitiveness: As businesses become more aware of the importance of SEO, competition for top search rankings becomes more intense. This requires Technical SEO professionals to be even more skilled and strategic in their approach.
What Are Some Implications Of Bad Technical SEO?
What happens when your website is essentially falling apart? Your website will still be functioning however not to its fullest potential — this becomes especially problematic when there’s money on the line, and the following list of issues will drive that point home.
The implications of bad Technical SEO include the following problems and note that this is by no means an exhaustive list of potential issues:
Poor User Experience: Technical SEO issues can cause slow loading times, broken links, and 404 pages, which can negatively affect the user experience.
Low Search Engine Rankings: Technical SEO issues can impact search engine rankings and make it difficult for search engines to crawl and index pages, leading to lower visibility and decreased traffic.
Reduced Conversion Rates: Poor technical SEO can result in a low conversion rate as users are unable to navigate the site easily and may leave the site quickly due to frustration.
Missed Opportunities: Technical SEO issues can prevent websites from ranking for relevant keywords and phrases, resulting in missed opportunities for organic traffic.
Decreased Mobile Optimization: Technical SEO issues can also impact the mobile optimization of a website, leading to a negative user experience for mobile users.
Decreased Credibility: Poor Technical SEO can damage a website’s credibility, as users may perceive the site as outdated or unprofessional.
Increased Bounce Rates: Technical SEO issues can result in high bounce rates, as users quickly leave the site due to frustration with its functionality.
Lost Revenue: Technical SEO issues can negatively impact a website’s revenue, as users are less likely to make a purchase or engage with the site if they have a poor user experience.
High Cloud Hosting Provider Costs: If your website is slow and has enough traffic it could result in a high or very high bill from the cloud hosting provider. If your website experiences a sudden spike in traffic and crashes, you may end up with lost business and time and money spent trying to get it back online.
Higher Risk for the Website Administrator: Websites which are based on a plugin architecture, such as WordPress, often have updates available for new versions of products which the website uses. Ignoring these updates can result in degradation of the website over time and also introduce the potential for the website to become compromised due to a missing security update. Also note that the Content Management System (CMS) (WordPress or another) may require semi-frequent or frequent updates as well — falling behind on these updates introduces the same risk and may make upgrading later difficult or even impossible.
If you’re worried and concerned that visitors and search engines are leaving in droves due to issues that are often easy to address then the next step may be to have a Technical SEO Site Audit performed. This is relatively easy to do and will reveal where problems exist along with suggestions regarding how to go about fixing many of them.
What Are Some Implications Of Good Technical SEO?
In contrast, good Technical SEO can have significant positive implications for the visibility, user experience, and overall success of your website — we elaborate on this below:
Improved website performance: Good technical SEO ensures that your website loads faster, performs better, and is easier to crawl and index by search engines. This can result in a better user experience (UX) and a higher ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Increased visibility and traffic: Good Technical SEO can increase the visibility of your website in search engine results, driving more organic traffic to your site — this can lead to increased brand awareness and revenue.
Better user experience (UX): Technical SEO focuses on improving the technical aspects of a website to make it more user-friendly. This can improve user experience, resulting in higher engagement, longer session durations, and increased conversions.
Higher search engine rankings: Good Technical SEO helps search engines understand your website and its content better. This can result in higher search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find your website.
Long-term benefits: Technical SEO is a long-term strategy that can provide sustainable benefits for your website. By improving the technical foundation of your website, you can enjoy the benefits of increased visibility, traffic, and revenue for years to come.
By investing in Technical SEO, you can set your website up for long-term success and growth.
Why is Technical SEO Important: Article Conclusion
This concludes the article that attempts to answer the question “Why is Technical SEO Important?“. We used ChatGPT to help develop the content for this post and it did a very good job at covering both technical and human reasons why we should invest in this subject matter. ChatGPT also helped me develop the content much faster than if I had to research and write this completely on my own.
Code clean and structured, Keywords and tags precise, aligned, Search engines smile wide.
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🐝 Do you disagree with anything I’ve written regarding my attempt to answer the “Why Technical SEO Is Important?” question?
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