In the ever-evolving landscape of search engine optimization (SEO), keeping up with the latest updates is essential for maintaining a website’s visibility and performance. One significant shift came with Google’s Helpful Content Update, released in mid-2022. This update aimed to prioritize high-quality, relevant, and genuinely helpful content, which had a profound impact on many websites, particularly those producing low-quality or unhelpful material. Andy Frobisher, an SEO expert, emphasizes the importance of not allowing your technical SEO to suffer in the wake of such updates. Here’s a breakdown of his insights into ensuring strong technical foundations, even after content-focused changes from Google.
Understanding the Helpful Content Update
The Helpful Content Update primarily targeted sites that lacked high-quality content and were producing articles without genuine user value. This shift forced many website administrators and SEO professionals to reconsider their strategy. However, Frobisher points out that while content quality is vital, focusing solely on it can lead to overlooking foundational issues related to technical SEO.
Frobisher likens technical SEO to the foundations of a house. If the foundations are weak or flawed, the entire structure is at risk, regardless of how appealing the interior decoration (content) is. Therefore, when faced with declining visibility or ranking fluctuations, it’s crucial first to assess the technical aspects of the website rather than immediately attributing these challenges to the content.
Key Technical SEO Elements to Maintain
1. Accessibility for Crawlers
A fundamental aspect of technical SEO is ensuring that search engine crawlers, such as Googlebot, can access your important content. This requires checking that critical pages are not unintentionally blocked via robots.txt files or incorrect canonical tags. If crawlers can’t discover or render your pages efficiently, your site’s rankings may suffer.
2. Site Speed and Response Time
Website loading speeds are crucial. Frobisher suggests that if it takes Googlebot more than five seconds to fetch and render a page, it’s likely to abandon the effort and move on. This underscores the importance of optimizing server response times and ensuring your site is efficiently coded to minimize load times.
3. JavaScript Considerations
For sites heavy on JavaScript, it’s crucial to guarantee that bots can crawl and render content correctly. Implementing solutions like pre-rendering, which caches HTML versions of JavaScript-heavy pages, can help make content available quicker for crawlers. However, as Frobisher notes, this should be a temporary measure; long-term solutions should plan for server-side rendering combined with a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for efficiency.
4. Internal Linking Structure
A robust internal linking structure aids both users and search engines in navigating a website. Frobisher emphasizes the importance of strategic manual linking rather than relying on automated solutions. The anchor text used must be relevant, and internal links should be placed strategically within the content to ensure optimal user experience and site authority. Reducing the number of clicks it takes to access critical pages can significantly enhance discoverability.
Diagnosing Technical Issues
To identify technical SEO issues, tools such as Google Search Console and Screaming Frog can provide insights into how Google perceives your HTML and identify discrepancies. Frobisher also suggests cross-referencing the Document Object Model (DOM) with the source code to find potential JavaScript rendering issues.
Conclusion: A Balanced Approach for SEO Success
In conclusion, while creating high-quality and helpful content remains imperative following the Helpful Content Update, maintaining strong technical SEO is equally essential for sustained website performance. By focusing on technical foundations—ensuring accessibility, optimizing site speed, managing JavaScript, and maintaining a good internal linking strategy—webmasters can better navigate the complexities of SEO in 2024 and beyond.
Andy Frobisher’s insights serve as a reminder that content and technical SEO are not mutually exclusive; both require attention and care to achieve the best possible outcomes in search rankings. By balancing these aspects, you can cultivate a resilient online presence that withstands the fluctuations of algorithm updates.
