Uploaded byIva Jovanović
Technical SEO for Local Websites and Why It Matters - Local SEO for Good 2025 Deck.pdf
The talk "Technical SEO for Local Websites and Why It Matters" done for Local SEO for Good 2025 Description: Local businesses rely heavily on organic visibility to attract nearby customers, but they also need a strong technical SEO foundation. Most businesses deal with a technically challenging website, or have no budget to take care of this - but what happens when the loading takes forever? Or if Core Web Vitals fail? What does all this mean for local businesses? With examples, practical tips, and common mistakes, this talk will break down the essential technical elements that directly impact local search performance and how to prioritize and address these issues.
![Website Audit [On Page and Off Page] by Carl Benedic Pantaleon](https://cdn.slidesharecdn.com/ss_thumbnails/websiteauditonpageandoffpage-181119200930-thumbnail.jpg?width=640&height=640&fit=bounds)
Technical SEO for Local Websites and Why It Matters - Local SEO for Good 2025 Deck.pdf
- 1. Technical SEO for LocalWebsites and Why It Matters Iva Jovanovic
- 2. Who am I? ●Digital Marketing - SEO, content, social media ● Strong focus on technical SEO and web development ● Organizing Belgrade SEO Conference ● Organizing Heapcon ● Traveling, attending conferences ● Animal lover
- 3. PACT - animalsanctuary and wildlife rescue
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- 5. Enough about me Let’stalk about Technical SEO!
- 7. What is TechnicalSEO? ➢ Website performance ➢ Website speed ➢ Website structure ➢ Mobile-friendliness and responsive design
- 9. Why does alocal business need a website? ➢ Online presence ➢ Building a presence on different channels ➢ Better visibility ➢ AI optimization ➢ Online booking system
- 10. Why does alocal business need a website?
- 11. Why does alocal business need a website? ➢ Online presence ➢ Building a presence on different channels ➢ Better visibility ➢ AI optimization ➢ Online booking system
- 12. Why technical SEOmatters ➢ Local businesses need Technical SEO
- 13. Why technical SEOmatters ➢ Local SEO needs Technical SEO
- 14. Why technical SEOmatters ➢ Local SEO needs Technical SEO ➢ Technical SEO allows content and websites to perform to its full potential.
- 15. Why technical SEOmatters ➢ Local SEO needs Technical SEO ➢ Technical SEO allows content and websites to perform to its full potential. ➢ It helps search engines find, understand, and index your website and its content.
- 17. What happens whenthe spider can’t get to your website?
- 18. What is preventingthe spiders?
- 19. Spoiler alert: It’sprobably your website! What is preventing the spiders?
- 20.
- 21. Noindex tag Noindex isa rule that tells search engines like Google not to index a given webpage. When you noindex a page, search engines won’t save that page and show it in their results.
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- 24. Noindex tag in Yoaston a WordPress website
- 25. Noindex tag in RankMathon a WordPress website
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- 27. Robots.txt A robots.txt fileis a file placed in a website's directory that tells web crawlers and bots which parts of the website they are allowed to crawl and index, and which parts to avoid.
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- 30. Missing or badrobots.txt
- 31. Meta tags inthe wrong place
- 32. Meta tags inthe wrong place
- 33. Meta tags inthe wrong place ➢ They must be placed in the <head> ➢ When placed in <body> they probably won’t get noticed by crawlers
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- 39. Wrong HTML (heading)structure
- 40. Wrong HTML (heading)structure
- 41. Wrong HTML (heading)structure
- 42. Proper heading structure Followthe heading numbers like you’re counting them Use headings for elements that should be headings
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- 44. www vs non-www Havingmultiple versions of the website available. It means you have a duplicate of every page on a different URL.
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- 47. http vs https Havingmultiple versions of the website available SSL certificate
- 49. And here comecanonicals
- 50. Canonicals A way oftelling crawlers which page is the original It is the master version of a page that should be indexed when the same content is available at multiple different URLs
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- 52. Canonicals For every pagein the group of duplicates, you should pick one canonical version that you want to be indexed in search results. Add its URL to the "rel=canonical" labeling on each page with duplicated content, including the canonical page itself.
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- 54. Broken links ➢ Leavingstaging links ➢ Not redirecting or removing links after deleting ➢ Linking incomplete URLs ➢ Adding links without the / at the end
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- 58. 404 pages linkedon the website
- 59. Redirects ➢ A mustwhen deleting pages ➢ But not great to have too many ➢ Be careful when placing redirects
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- 62. Redirect chains andloops
- 63. Redirect chains ➢ Whenthere are multiple redirects between an initial URL and final URL ➢ Makes the final URL the user gets load longer ➢ Google aborts following redirects after 5 hops to preserve its crawling resources
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- 65. Redirect loops ➢ WhenURL is redirected to another URL, which in turn redirects back to the URL that was originally requested ➢ Creates an infinite cycle of redirects
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- 67. Bad URL structure ➢Using long, complicated URLs ➢ Using auto-generated strings ➢ Mixing uppercase and lowercase letters ➢ Using underscores instead of hyphens ➢ Including spaces or special characters ➢ Duplicate URLs for the same page
- 68. Examples of badURLs https://www.website.com/sr/----games---- https://www.website.com/sr/figures---dioramas https://www.website.com/blogs/news/best-beds-for-back-pain https://www.website.com/valentine-s-day-gifts-thatll-symbolize-your-love-1 https://website.com/?p=1647 https://www.website.com/blog?743e123b
- 69. Missing or badsitemap
- 70. Missing or badsitemap
- 71. Missing or badsitemap
- 72.
- 73. Using blog postsas pages ➢ Instead of creating pages ➢ Using blog posts for location pages or landing pages
- 74. Having your blogas a blog category ➢ Happens when using blog posts for something else ➢ Using a category named Blog for the blog posts
- 75. Having your blogas a blog category Having https://website.com/category/blog/ and https://website.com/blog/ Instead of just having a blog page on https://website.com/blog/
- 76. Using too muchJavaScript elements ➢ Overloading the website with too much JavaScript elements ➢ Slows down the website ➢ Often makes bad user experience
- 77. Hiding content ➢ Neverhide content ➢ Do not use elements that hide your content ➢ Avoid JavaScript elements that can hide your content ➢ Do not use colors to hide your content
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- 81. Slow website loading Whywould you want your website to load for ages?
- 82. Slow website loading Whywould your users wait for your website to load?
- 83. How many timeshave we seen this?
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- 87. Why is thisnumber important?
- 88. Why is thisnumber important? Because nobody will wait for your website.
- 89. Why is thisnumber important?
- 90. Why is thisnumber important?
- 91. How to beatthis? ➢ Properly size images. Do not upload that 5MB image. ➢ Reduce unused CSS and JavaScript. Get your developer to go through the code and see what’s being used or not. ➢ Minimize files. WordPress users can use a plugin for this. ➢ Make sure you have an efficient cache policy.
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- 94. No responsive design ➢Mobile usability is very important ➢ Your design must be functional on the phone ➢ Crawlers and users both need mobile to be functional
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- 101. How to identifythese issues? Use tools ➔ Google Search Console is a must ➔ Ahrefs, Semrush, SERanking, Moz all have site audit options ➔ Screaming Frog, Sitebulb for crawling
- 102. Takeways ➢ Technical SEOsets the foundation for visibility, usability, and growth. ➢ Common pitfalls like broken links, poor structure, duplicate content, slow load times, and bad navigation can quietly destroy rankings and user trust. ➢ Do those audits and prioritize your fixes. ➢ For small businesses, these aren’t optional.
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