Technical SEO Basics Every Business Owner Should Know

Technical SEO sounds intimidating but the fundamentals are straightforward. Here are the basics every business owner should understand — and how to check whether your site has problems.

Page Speed

Google uses page speed as a ranking factor and it directly affects user experience. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights (free). Aim for a score above 70 on mobile. Common fixes: compress images, reduce JavaScript, enable browser caching.

Mobile-Friendliness

Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check. If your site fails, it's hurting your ranking regardless of your content quality.

HTTPS Security

Google gives a small ranking boost to HTTPS sites and Chrome marks non-HTTPS sites as "Not Secure." If your site still uses HTTP, contact your hosting provider — most offer free SSL certificates.

Broken Links

Links to pages that no longer exist (404 errors) waste crawl budget and create a poor user experience. Use Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs) to find and fix broken links.

Duplicate Content

If multiple URLs on your site show the same content, Google doesn't know which one to rank. Use canonical tags to tell Google which version is the primary one.

The fix: Run PageSpeed Insights and the Mobile-Friendly Test on your homepage today. Fix the highest-priority issues. These two checks cover the most common technical SEO problems.