How to Talk to Bots: 8 Technical SEO Tips

SEO is constantly changing and it’s as important as ever to know how to talk to search engine bots. These include, above all others, Googlebot and Bingbot, which play essential roles in positioning your site on their respective search engines. Additionally, developments such as Bing’s Copilot and Google Assistant, driven by artificial intelligence, are increasingly influencing the way users interact online. Here is an updated guide with eight technical SEO tips that you can employ for optimizing your website for search engines in 2024.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your site so that search engines can find, understand, and index its content properly. It’s how your website talks to Google and Bing. When you get it right, this language will help improve your ranking on search results pages.

The Mechanics of Search Engines

Understanding how to speak effectively with bots involves understanding the process of searching:

Discovery: Backlinks, manual submissions, and sitemaps are ways that bots learn about a website’s existence/URL.
Crawling and Rendering: Bots crawl across your page, fetching it along the way.
Indexing: The page gets indexed after crawling, meaning it will be found when people perform searches.
Ranking: Your page is ranked based on what the bots have learned from proprietary algorithms, considering factors like mobile-friendliness, speed scores, and schema markups.

Eight Hands-on Technical SEO Strategies

1. Evaluate Your Current Site Indexing

Using Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to see how many pages of your site are indexed. This gives you an idea about which pages are visible in SERPs while identifying any indexing problems. You can also use the “site:” operator to isolate a search to only indexed pages on your site. For example, “site:pagely.com” would return a list of all pages indexed for Pagely.

Bing Webmaster Tools: Similarly, Bing offers Webmaster Tools that give you a more in-depth analysis of your site’s performance on Bing search, highlighting issues like indexing problems, duplicate content, and more.

2. Ensure Quick Page Loading Times

Page speed is important for both SEO and user experience. You can use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix any performance issues. In 2021, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, focusing on user experience; they include loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Bing also considers page speed and UX factors when ranking sites, so it is really important to optimize these metrics.

Key Metrics to Monitor:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds from the start of page load.
First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity. FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. CLS score should be less than 0.1.

3. Optimize Your Headers

Headers provide structure for both users and search engines in relation to your content. Use one H1 per page for the main topic, H2s for subtopics, and H3s for sub-subtopics. Additionally, include relevant keywords naturally using header tags, making it easily understood by search engines.

Example of Header Structure:

H1: How to Improve Your SEO
- H2: The Importance of SEO
  - H3: Benefits of Higher Rankings
- H2: Key SEO Strategies
  - H3: On-Page SEO
  - H3: Off-Page SEO

4. Master Tag Usage

Canonical Tags: Prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a page. This is particularly important for e-commerce sites where similar products might have multiple URLs. By using canonical tags, you ensure that search engines know which version of a page to index and rank.

Noindex Tags: Use these to keep certain pages (like login screens or thank-you pages) out of search results, ensuring your site’s SEO is focused on valuable content. This helps maintain a clean and focused search presence.

Alt Text: Google’s image recognition continues to improve, making alt text even more crucial for accessibility and SEO. Improve your image SEO by using descriptive alt tags that explain what the image is about.

Example of Alt Text Use:

Good: <img src="blue-shirt.jpg" alt="Blue Shirt for Sale">
Bad: <img src="blue-shirt.jpg" alt="shirt">

5. Configure Your Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file guides bots on which pages to crawl or avoid. Ensure it exists at example.com/robots.txt. Tools like Yoast SEO can help you create and manage this file. Be careful with disallowing pages, as incorrectly configuring this file can lead to essential pages being omitted from search results.

Common Robots.txt Entries:

Allow all bots to crawl the entire site:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Block all bots from a specific folder:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /folder-name/

6. Leverage Sitemaps

Sitemaps help bots understand your site structure. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Use plugins like Yoast to manage sitemaps on WordPress. With the increasing importance of structured data, ensure your sitemap includes schema markup to provide search engines with detailed information about your site’s content.

Benefits of XML Sitemaps:

Ensure all important pages are indexed.
Provide metadata about each URL (e.g., last updated, change frequency).
Help search engines understand your site structure.

7. Implement HTTPS Throughout Your Site

HTTPS is a ranking signal and essential for securing data. Ensure your site uses SSL certificates to protect user information and improve SEO. In 2024, search engines prioritize sites with HTTPS, and browsers like Chrome and Edge label non-HTTPS sites as “Not Secure,” potentially driving users away.

Steps to Implement HTTPS:

Install an SSL certificate.
Update internal links to use HTTPS.
Redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS.
Verify the HTTPS setup using tools like SSL Labs.

8. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

With mobile-first indexing, the mobile version of your site is crucial. Ensure your site is mobile-friendly by using responsive design, optimizing load times, and considering frameworks like AMP. Additionally, test your site on various devices and screen sizes to ensure a seamless experience for all users.

Mobile Optimization Tips:

Emerging SEO Practices for 2024

Adopt AI and Machine Learning

Search engines are increasingly using AI and machine learning to understand and rank content. Use tools like Google’s BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) and Bing’s AI capabilities to optimize your content for natural language processing, ensuring it matches user intent more closely.

Consider content analysis tools like Clearscope to get AI-powered keyword recommendations and content optimization tips.

Prioritize User Intent

Understanding user intent is more critical than ever. Create content that answers specific queries and provides value. Tools like Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Search Console can help you understand what users are looking for when they find your site, allowing you to tailor your content accordingly.

Types of User Intent:

Informational: Users looking for information.
Navigational: Users searching for a specific website.
Transactional: Users ready to make a purchase.

Capitalize on Voice Search and AI Assistants

With the rise of voice-activated devices and AI assistants like Bing’s Copilot and Google Assistant, optimizing for voice search is becoming essential. Use natural language, question-based keywords, and concise answers to make your content more accessible for voice search.

Voice Search Tips:

Focus on long-tail keywords and natural language.
Answer questions directly and concisely.
Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and fast.

Optimize for Bing’s Copilot and Google Assistant:

Structured Data: Use schema markup to help AI assistants understand and display your content in voice search results.
Conversational Content: Write in a conversational tone to align with how users speak in voice queries.
FAQ Pages: Create FAQ pages that address common questions related to your business or industry, making it easier for AI assistants to pull accurate responses.

Final Thoughts: Simplify SEO Management

While mastering technical SEO is possible, it can be complex and time-consuming. Sometimes, offloading this to professionals or using managed services makes sense. Pagely’s Managed WordPress plans include features like automatic updates, enhanced security, and performance optimization, making it easier for you to focus on growing your business.

Interested in more SEO insights? Check out our other post on 3 Reasons Why Making Your Site Multilingual Could Improve Your SEO.

For more support, visit our Pagely Support page.

Team Pagely