A Complete Guide to Auditing and Optimizing Your Website’s Backend for Better Rankings

Buckle up, this is a long one. It's worth it.

SEO is changing.

The way people search is changing.

The way the internet learns is changing.

If you don’t think so, just watch a young kid use a tech device and see how they search. If your kids or kids you know are anything like ours, they’re using voice. I mean we are even more likely to ask Siri or Alexa something, or pick up our phone and not only use voice to search the web but also for talk-to-text.

The combination of people using voice for so many things is changing the way SEO works and how AI is learning, but there are still some integral parts of technical SEO that will remain the way they have been for the foreseeable future.

If you’re aiming to improve your website’s visibility and performance on search engines, technical SEO is key. While content and backlinks are essential, the backend technical health of your website is equally critical. A well-optimized backend ensures that your content can be indexed and ranked correctly, contributing to higher traffic and engagement. In addition, with the rise of voice search, incorporating voice-optimized SEO into your strategy is becoming increasingly important.

Mastering Technical SEO and Voice Search: Our Guide to Optimizing Your Website’s Backend for Rankings and Future Growth

In order to understand what it is you even need to look at, it’s best practice to conduct a technical SEO audit. A technical SEO audit helps identify hidden issues that may be slowing down your site or hurting its rankings.

Tools to Use for Technical SEO Audit:

1. Google Search Console

• What It Does: Google Search Console (GSC) is an essential tool for monitoring your website’s health in Google’s eyes. It provides insights into how your site is performing in search results, highlights crawl errors, and shows which pages are indexed or blocked from indexing.
• Key Features:Crawl Issues: GSC shows which pages Google is having trouble crawling, helping you identify and fix crawl errors like 404s or server issues.Index Coverage: This report tells you how many of your pages are successfully indexed, as well as any pages that are excluded, providing reasons for exclusion (e.g., noindex tags, duplicate content).Performance Data: You can analyze performance metrics like clicks, impressions, and average position of your site’s pages in Google Search. This helps you see what keywords are driving traffic and identify optimization opportunities.
• Best Practices: Regularly check GSC for errors, especially after making significant changes to your site, and use the tool to submit an updated XML sitemap.

2. SEMrush or Ahrefs

• What They Do: Both SEMrush and Ahrefs are comprehensive SEO tools that offer in-depth reports on a wide range of technical SEO factors, including broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and competitor analysis.
• Key Features:Site Audit: These tools crawl your site and provide a health score, identifying issues like duplicate content, orphan pages, and improper redirects. They also suggest fixes for each error.Broken Links: Identify broken internal and external links that may harm user experience and SEO.Competitor Analysis: Both platforms offer insights into your competitors’ backlinks, top-performing content, and keyword rankings, which can help you refine your strategy.
• Best Practices: Use these tools to prioritize high-impact fixes, such as resolving broken links or optimizing missing alt attributes. Compare your site’s health score to competitors to stay competitive.

3. Screaming Frog

• What It Does: Screaming Frog is a powerful SEO crawler that scans your website’s pages to identify technical issues related to meta tags, URL structures, internal linking, and more.
• Key Features:Meta Tag Analysis: Screaming Frog helps identify missing, duplicate, or overly long meta titles and descriptions.URL and Structure Issues: It flags issues like URLs that are too long, broken links, or redirect chains, which can hurt SEO performance.Image Optimization: You can check for missing alt attributes on images and oversized image files, both of which impact SEO and site speed.
• Best Practices: Use Screaming Frog to do a deep dive into your site’s structure, focusing on fixing broken links, duplicate content, and optimizing meta tags.

Key Areas to Check During an Audit:

1. Crawlability and Indexability

• What to Look For: Crawlability refers to how easily search engines can access and crawl the pages on your website. Indexability refers to whether those pages can be stored in Google’s index.
• Tools: Use Google Search Console to check if there are any blocked pages or errors in your robots.txt file. Screaming Frog can also show you which pages are inaccessible to crawlers.
• Fixes: Ensure essential pages aren’t accidentally blocked by the robots.txt file or a “noindex” tag. Submitting a clean sitemap to Google is another way to ensure proper crawlability and indexability.

2. Site Speed

• Why It’s Important: Site speed is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Slow loading times negatively impact user experience, leading to higher bounce rates and lower rankings.
• Tools: Use Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom to assess page load times.
• Fixes: Compress images, minify CSS and JavaScript, and leverage browser caching and CDNs to improve load times. Optimizing for site speed can lead to a significant boost in both user experience and rankings.

3. Broken Links

• Why It’s Important: Broken links (404 errors) harm both SEO and user experience, leading to lost link equity and frustrated users.
• Tools: Use SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Screaming Frog to find and fix broken internal and external links.
• Fixes: Redirect broken URLs to relevant content using 301 redirects, or update the broken links with correct URLs. Regularly monitor and fix broken links to maintain site health.

4. XML Sitemap

• What to Check: Ensure your XML sitemap includes all important pages and is submitted to search engines.
• Tools: Google Search Console can help you verify if your sitemap is submitted and identify any errors.
• Fixes: Update your XML sitemap regularly to include any newly added content. Remove any unnecessary or thin-content pages from the sitemap to ensure you’re focusing on high-quality pages.

5. Mobile Usability

• Why It’s Important: With mobile-first indexing, Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re likely to see a drop in rankings.
• Tools: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check how your site performs on mobile devices. Screaming Frog also provides mobile usability insights.
• Fixes: Ensure your site has a responsive design, uses large enough text for readability, and that all interactive elements are easy to use on mobile devices. Fix any mobile usability issues to ensure your site ranks well on mobile search.

Now that we’ve completed the audit, let’s talk about what you can do to fix your findings!

First, Fix Crawlability and Indexing Issues

Ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your content is critical for SEO success. If bots can’t access or understand your pages, no amount of content optimization will help you rank.

Check Your robots.txt File

• What It Does: The robots.txt file controls which parts of your site search engines are allowed to crawl. It tells search engines which pages or sections should be indexed and which should not. Misconfigured robots.txt files can block essential content, which means that search engines won’t crawl or index those pages.
• Best Practice: Only disallow non-essential areas, such as admin pages, development environments, or duplicate content that may dilute your SEO efforts. Use tools like Google Search Console to test your robots.txt file and ensure it’s not inadvertently blocking important sections.

Check URL Parameters

• What to Look For: URL parameters can cause issues like creating multiple versions of the same content. For example, filters or sort functions on e-commerce websites can generate unique URLs for the same page, leading to duplicate content.
• Fix: Implement canonical tags to specify which version of the page search engines should index. Alternatively, you can tell Google how to handle URL parameters using the URL Parameters tool in Google Search Console, ensuring that unnecessary variations aren’t indexed.

Submit an XML Sitemap

• Why It’s Important: An XML sitemap acts as a roadmap for search engines, guiding them to your most important pages. It helps Google index your content faster and more accurately, especially for large or complex websites.
• Action: Use tools like Yoast SEO for WordPress or manually create a sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console. Regularly update it to reflect changes to your site and ensure new content is being indexed.

Second, Optimize Website Speed and Performance

Website speed is not only a ranking factor for SEO but also crucial for user experience. Pages that load slowly lead to higher bounce rates, lower conversions, and worse overall site performance.

Image Optimization

• Action: Large image files are one of the most common causes of slow websites. Compress images using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim without sacrificing visual quality.
• Result: Faster page load times, especially on mobile devices where speed is even more critical.

Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML

• Action: Remove unnecessary spaces, characters, and line breaks from your code. Tools like MinifyCode or Google PageSpeed Insights can help you streamline your website’s codebase.
• Result: Reducing file sizes leads to faster rendering, allowing browsers to load your pages more quickly.

Enable Browser Caching

• Action: Store static resources (like CSS files, JavaScript, and images) on users’ devices for future visits. By setting up browser caching, users don’t need to download the same files every time they visit your site.
• Result: Improved load times on subsequent visits, enhancing user experience and SEO performance.

Leverage a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

• Action: A CDN distributes your website’s content across multiple servers worldwide. This reduces the time it takes for users to load pages, especially for international visitors.
• Result: Lower latency, faster load times, and a more global reach.

Third, Ensure Mobile Friendliness

With Google’s mobile-first indexing, the mobile version of your site is now more important than ever. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, your rankings will suffer, and so will user experience.

Test Mobile Usability

• Action: Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to determine if your website provides a smooth experience on smartphones and tablets. This tool will highlight issues like small font sizes, unclickable buttons, or viewport problems.
• Result: Identifying and fixing mobile issues will improve both user experience and mobile rankings in search engines.

Responsive Design

• Action: Implement responsive web design frameworks like Bootstrap to ensure your website adjusts dynamically to different screen sizes. This creates a seamless experience for users on both mobile and desktop devices.
• Result: Improved mobile search rankings and enhanced user engagement across devices.

Fourth, Optimize for Voice Search

As voice search continues to grow, optimizing your site to be voice-friendly can help you capture this expanding audience. Voice search queries are usually longer and more conversational, meaning you need to tweak your SEO strategy accordingly.

Why Voice Search Matters:

• Increased Use: With devices like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, more users are searching via voice. Voice search queries tend to be longer and more conversational, meaning traditional short-tail keywords may not be as effective.
• Growing Popularity: By 2025, it’s predicted that 50% of all searches will be voice-based, making voice search optimization essential for future-proofing your SEO.

How to Optimize for Voice Search:

• Focus on Natural Language: Voice search users phrase their queries differently than they would in text-based searches. Instead of optimizing for “dry needling,” try optimizing for conversational queries like “What are the benefits of dry needling?”
• Create FAQ Pages: Many voice search queries are questions. FAQ pages that provide clear, concise answers to common questions are excellent for targeting voice search queries.
• Use Structured Data: Schema markup helps search engines understand your content better, increasing your chances of being featured in rich snippets, which are often pulled for voice search results.
• Optimize for Local Search: Many voice searches are local (e.g., “Where is the nearest physical therapy clinic?”). Optimize your Google My Business profile and include local keywords to capture nearby voice searches.

Fifth, Fix Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data helps search engines understand your content better and leads to rich snippets in search results, which are often featured in voice search responses.

Use Schema Markup:

• Action: Add structured data to your HTML using tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. Ensure your schema covers key elements like product information, FAQs, reviews, or business hours.
• Result: Enhanced visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), often leading to rich results like review stars, FAQs, or product listings.

Fix Duplicate Content Issues

Duplicate content can confuse search engines and harm your SEO efforts by splitting ranking signals between multiple versions of the same page.

Canonical Tags:

• Action: Use the rel=“canonical” tag to tell search engines which version of a page is the primary one that should be indexed.
• Result: This reduces the risk of Google indexing duplicate content, helping consolidate ranking signals.

301 Redirects:

• Action: Implement 301 redirects to automatically send users and search engines to the correct version of a page when URLs have been duplicated or content has been updated.
• Result: Consolidates ranking signals and provides a better user experience by directing users to the most up-to-date content.

Lastly, Monitor and Update Regularly

SEO isn’t something you fix once and forget about. Regular monitoring and audits will help you stay ahead of potential issues and ensure your website remains optimized.

Ongoing Monitoring:

• Action: Use tools like Google Search Console, SEMrush, or Screaming Frog to monitor and track errors. You can identify new issues like crawl errors, broken links, or mobile usability problems as they arise.
• Result: Continuous improvements to your site’s health, user experience, and rankings.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! That was a lot of information. But we wanted to make sure you had all the right answers and the most comprehensive information so you were ready to see your findings and tackle ways to improve your technical SEO!

So now that you’ve done all of the back end work, what can you expect from this time and resource intensive project?

So What Are Your Expected Results After Implementation of These Fixes?

Implementing technical SEO best practices and optimizing your website for voice search not only improves how search engines view your site but also greatly enhances user experience. These changes can have a dramatic and long-lasting impact on your website’s performance.

1. Improved Crawlability and Indexing

• Why It Matters: One of the primary goals of technical SEO is to ensure that search engine bots can easily crawl and index your website. Without this, search engines won’t be able to discover all your important content, and ranking will suffer.
• Expected Outcome: By addressing crawlability issues (such as fixing robots.txt and ensuring proper use of canonical tags), search engines like Google will be able to access and rank more of your pages. This means that your key content, products, and landing pages will have a better chance of appearing in search results, ultimately improving your overall visibility in search engines.
• Ranking Boost: As more of your pages are crawled and indexed efficiently, you’ll see improved rankings for existing content and quicker indexing of new pages, ensuring that your content stays competitive in the SERPs.

2. Faster Load Times

• Why It Matters: Site speed is a crucial ranking factor and significantly affects user behavior. Studies show that even a one-second delay in page load time can decrease conversions by up to 7% and increase bounce rates by 56%.
• Expected Outcome: After optimizing your site speed by compressing images, minifying code, and leveraging a CDN, you’ll notice significant improvements in how quickly your pages load. A faster website not only helps boost your rankings but also creates a better user experience.
• Lower Bounce Rates: Faster load times lead to fewer users leaving your site due to frustration. Lower bounce rates are directly correlated with higher engagement, better conversion rates, and improved organic rankings over time.

3. Higher Mobile and Voice Search Rankings

• Why It Matters: With mobile-first indexing now the default and voice search on the rise, optimizing for these technologies is essential. Google favors mobile-friendly sites, and voice search often relies on rich snippets and structured data to provide answers.
• Expected Outcome: By making your site fully mobile-responsive and voice-search-optimized, you will rank higher on mobile search results. This is particularly important as mobile traffic continues to dominate web usage, and voice search is becoming more prevalent.
• Increased Mobile Traffic: Expect an increase in organic traffic from mobile users as your site becomes more optimized for small screens, with content structured in a way that answers user queries directly—essential for voice search success.
• Greater Visibility in Voice Search Results: Voice search prioritizes concise, well-structured answers. By optimizing FAQ pages and using schema markup, you improve your chances of being selected as a featured snippet or answer for voice search queries, boosting your visibility on smart devices.

4. Better User Experience and Engagement

• Why It Matters: A technically optimized site is more than just search-engine-friendly—it’s user-friendly. Ensuring fast load times, responsive design, and accessible content helps keep visitors on your site longer and encourages them to take action.
• Expected Outcome: A smoother, faster, and more intuitive user experience translates into higher user engagement and better retention rates. Visitors are more likely to explore your website, view multiple pages, and complete conversions (whether that’s signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or filling out a contact form).
• Longer Session Durations and More Page Views: As users navigate a fast and seamless website, they are more likely to interact with multiple pages, resulting in longer session durations, increased page views, and, ultimately, a stronger connection with your brand.
• Increased Conversions: All of these improvements—faster load times, mobile responsiveness, and intuitive navigation—contribute to higher conversion rates. Whether you’re looking for more leads, sales, or sign-ups, a well-optimized website is much more likely to drive results.

Mastering technical SEO is essential for ensuring that your website is optimized for both search engines and users. By conducting regular audits, addressing crawlability issues, optimizing site speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and preparing for the rise of voice search, you’ll create a solid foundation for higher rankings and better performance.

Implementing these strategies not only boosts visibility but also enhances the user experience, leading to increased engagement and conversions. The real key here is consistency—keep refining your technical SEO efforts to stay competitive and continue driving long-term growth.