SEO hygiene is key to the site’s long-term SEO strategy.
When thinking about SEO strategy, Google comes up with a new update to screw it all up again.
Enter SEO hygiene.
Taking proactive steps to keep the site clean and running smoothly can help buffer external factors, supporting the site’s long-term goals and marketing strategy.
The best SEO hygiene practices to implement immediately to help improve rankings and generate more income.
Every day, people perform tasks for their own health and hygiene to make sure they look and feel their best.
SEO hygiene is similar.
Perform routine checks on the website itself or the customer’s website and configure it for long-term success.
The benefits of good SEO hygiene include:
*Higher rankings.
*Establishing himself as an authority.0
*Build credibility and trust.
*Increase in income.
As sites or organizations grow in size, the concept of good SEO hygiene is becoming more and more important.
Driving organic search traffic to a site helps generate income, increase interest, and increase brand awareness.
When a site hygiene plan is not in place or the necessary procedures have not been followed, it can lead to significant problems including:
*Loss of income.
*Lower search visibility.
*Reduced search traffic.
*Possible sanctions on the site.
Anyone who has been in the field for a period of time has probably experienced ups and downs in traffic.
Upgrades, even if they are not affected in the long term, can cause large fluctuations in the ratings.
While some SEO elements are completely out of control, there are also those that have 100% control over them.
Initiating proper practices and protocols can reduce the risk of poor hygiene affecting the site.
Best practices for good SEO hygiene:
Suppose having a good knowledge base of SEO and how it works.
Taking care of the best SEO practices.
Some of the basic elements that will be tracked are:
*Titles of the pages.
*Meta tags.
*Keyword targeting.
*Headings and subtitles.
*Alt Tags.
*Building internal and external links, etc.
But from a higher-level perspective, there are a lot of things that might be overlooking that can have a drastic impact on the site’s SEO.
The most important SEO hygiene considerations to have on the list are:
1. Clean code:
Code is the backbone of every website, and while an SEO admin may not know the ins and outs of all coding, they should review the code that the end-user (and search bots) will experience.
Remember, Googlebot is not dumb; one will examine the information and coding on the site.
Run the code through search engine inspection tools and spider simulators.
If a code block is not displayed or there are problems rendering a page, site traffic can plummet.
A quick technical SEO audit should be done of what search engines see when they access pages for any coding changes.
2. Content and ownership:
Website content can grow quickly, especially if someone doing business SEO.
When more employees and shareholders are involved, multiple teams can be formed to generate more content. Certain sections of the sites may be managed by different teams that do not communicate or collaborate.
When this happens, especially at the business level, teams can start competing for the same keywords on multiple pages and even end up creating duplicate content.
Proper SEO hygiene means implementing systems that help teams understand their roles and even communicate key changes to page content.
Go one step further by having one team manage all content and ownership from a higher level to reduce the risk of conflict and waste of resources.
This is also part of the governance of SEO in a large organization or with larger teams.
At a minimum, all new content should be reviewed and analyzed to avoid conflict.
3. Mobile-friendly design:
Site visitors should have a smooth and streamlined experience when visiting the mobile site.
When new features or functions are added to a site, it is important that these features are tested with mobile devices or simulators.
Need to ensure that whether someone is using responsive, dynamic, or separate sites for mobile device users, all changes are verified to work on mobile devices.
4. Redirects:
Redirect loops are easy to create, especially if multiple stakeholders are updating a site.
An SEO administrator can add a redirect to a .htaccess file, while a developer adds the redirect as a header in the encoding, and the server administrator handles them at the router level.
When this happens, one redirect can conflict with another, resulting in a bad user and bot experience.
This puts unnecessary stress and load times on the servers.
All redirects should be tested and recorded to ensure there is less risk of redirect loops or problems in the future.
Running ScreamingFrog or something similar to check for redirect problems will help avoid potential problems.
5. SEO quality assurance (QA):
Quality assurance should be a routine part of every SEO manager’s job.
When small changes are made to a site’s code, they can go unnoticed for weeks until the SEO owner discovers that the small change negatively impacted site traffic.
Procedures and records, such as describing any changes to a site’s coding using some kind of central database or management system, can help drive quality assurance.
The SEO owner can flag each new code integration to verify that there are no conflicting issues that could negatively affect the performance of a site.
6. Website architecture:
The architecture of a website is very important and it goes without saying that one needs to closely monitor changes in the architecture.
To keep navigation as easy as possible, but one will also want cohesion throughout the site.
It is important to monitor:
*Internal links.
*Navigation elements.
*Design principles.
*Formatting.
*Headers and footers.
If architectural issues are not fixed for a while, they can lead to a poor user experience and also make it difficult for search bots to find key pages on the site.
It could also affect the tracking budget.
When SEO hygiene best practices as an integral part of the operation, focus on the most important key part of success: the users.
Focusing on the health and function of the site is always the best for users and for any business, large or small.
As an ongoing process, add guidelines for the team to follow and review periodically.
SEO hygiene is an ongoing, long-term part of site success, so be sure to dedicate time and resources to it as the site continues to grow and evolve.
The bottom line and the traffic will thank for taking the time to create a solid foundation from which the site can grow.