3 KPIs for a Successful Technical SEO

Summary

Let’s explore three key performance indicators (KPIs) for achieving a successful technical SEO. If you are an entrepreneur managing your own SEO improvement, understanding and optimizing these KPIs will help you enhance your website's technical performance and overall search engine visibility.

3 Technical SEO Metrics

As part of our SEO KPIs articles and following “5 business-oriented KPIs to measure the success of your SEO activities” and “3 Website Analytics Metrics To Improve Your SEO”, we are analyzing 3 technical SEO KPIs. Indeed, technical SEO is a foundational block of SEO because even if you have optimized everything else, if a page is not crawled, indexed, or able to load fast enough, there can’t and won’t be any visitors.

1. Page Load Time

WHAT IS PAGE LOAD TIME

Page load time, or page speed, refers to the time it takes for a webpage to fully load and display its content. It is a crucial factor in user experience and SEO, as faster loading pages tend to have lower bounce rates and higher user engagement. Frankly, is there anything more annoying than a webpage that is too long to load?

HOW TO MEASURE PAGE LOAD TIME

Measure page load speed with:

Google PageSpeed Insights
Google Search Console > “Experience” > “Core Web Vitals” > “Desktop” or “Mobile” > “Open Report”
Google Lighthouse
GTmetrix

HOW TO IMPROVE PAGE LOAD TIME

To improve page load time:

1. Optimize images and use compressed formats.
2. Enable browser caching to reduce load times for returning visitors.
3. Minimize HTTP requests by combining CSS and JavaScript files.
4. Utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to distribute content and reduce server response times.

2. Number Of Indexed Pages

WHAT IS INDEXING

Indexing is the process by which search engine bots or crawlers systematically scan and analyze web pages to understand their content and store relevant information in a searchable database. This enables the search engine to quickly retrieve and display relevant results when users enter search queries or keywords. You want most of your website pages to be indexed by Google, otherwise you can’t get organic traffic.

HOW TO MEASURE THE NUMBER OF INDEXED PAGES

Track the number of indexed pages with:

Google Search Console > “Indexing” > “Pages”

HOW TO IMPROVE THE NUMBER OF INDEXED PAGES

To optimize indexing:

1. Check for and fix crawl errors, such as broken links or server errors. If a page can’t be crawled, it will not be indexed.
2. Create and submit a sitemap.xml file to help search engines discover all website pages.
3. Ensure that important pages are not blocked from indexing with meta tags or noindex directives.
4. Enhance your website's mobile-friendliness to boost its mobile indexing.

3. Core Web Vitals

WHAT ARE CORE WEB VITALS

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific website performance metrics introduced by Google that assess and measure the user experience on a webpage, including loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. They help to optimize sites for better user satisfaction and search engine rankings.

HOW TO MEASURE CORE WEB VITALS

Measure core web vitals with:

Google Search Console > “Experience” > “Core Web Vitals” > “Desktop” or “Mobile” > “Open Report”

HOW TO IMPROVE CORE WEB VITALS

To optimize Core Web Vitals and improve mobile SEO, entrepreneurs should:

1. Optimize website loading speed. Apply section 1 “Page Load Time” above.
2. Prioritize critical resources to ensure faster rendering of the largest content element (LCP).
3. Minimize JavaScript execution time and use browser idle periods to improve interactivity (FID).
4. Avoid sudden page layout shifts by providing size attributes for media elements and reserving space for ads or dynamic content (CLS).

Conclusion

Achieving technical SEO excellence is essential to improve your website's visibility and ranking on search engines. By focusing on key performance indicators like page speed, number of indexed pages, and Core Web Vitals, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your website's technical aspects to drive better search engine rankings and user experiences. A successful technical SEO strategy lays a solid foundation for sustained online growth and increased organic visibility, ultimately contributing to the overall success of your online business.