When people are experiencing mental health challenges, they don’t want the process of finding the care they need to add additional mental distress. If they’re not able to quickly find the information they need on your website, then they may feel like you’re not prioritizing their needs and user experience.
Your website is a reflection of your mental healthcare facility. If it’s not easy to use, or there are frequent technical issues, then people may assume that your practice doesn’t have the quality they’re looking for. That’s why the search engine algorithm considers the technical side of your site when ranking it for relevant keywords.
Technical SEO refers to creating a structure for your website that’s easy to navigate for both the potential patients and the algorithm. By regularly running a technical SEO audit, you’re able to catch any potential issues or bugs on the backend of your website that are interfering with your search engine rankings.
A checklist for your technical SEO audit
A technical SEO audit provides a detailed analysis of the backend of your website that’s related to your search engine performance. It will help you get a rundown on the factors considered by the algorithm so that you can see where there’s room for improvement and get ahead of potential issues before they impact your metrics.
As a mental healthcare brand, a technical SEO audit helps you see tangible data of how efficiently your website is helping people on their mental health journey through their user experience and engagement.
Here’s what should be included in your technical SEO audit:
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Site crawlability
A search engine can’t rank your site if it’s not able to find your webpages that are relevant to search queries. The algorithm is meant to “crawl” your site, meaning that it can access and navigate your content so that it can be listed on results pages.
An audit will look at any issues that can interfere with how well the algorithm can crawl your site, including looking at your:
- Sitemap
- Internal and external links
- Meta tags
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Indexability
After crawling your site, the algorithm will then get to work on indexing the pages. When a page is indexed into the search engine’s database, it means that the algorithm was able to analyze and understand the intent of the page so that it can be properly ranked for relevant keywords.
Indexability factors that can be looked at during a technical SEO audit include:
- Content quality
- Canonical tags
- Broken or outdated links
Crawlability and indexability tend to go hand-in-hand, so the factors will often overlap.
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Sitemap review
A sitemap refers to a file that lists every webpage of your site. It works as an outline for your site’s content. An HTML sitemap is a way to help users find what they need and increase the ease of navigation. An XML sitemap is a way to assist the algorithm with crawlability and indexability.
As part of the technical SEO audit, your sitemap will be analyzed for a few different characteristics, including:
- Structure
- Content grouping
- Last modification date
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Mobile-friendliness
The mobile-friendliness of your site plays a significant role in SEO performance in more ways than one. An audit will determine how easy it is for people to access your site on their mobile devices by looking at factors such as page load speed, adaptability of your website’s layout and redirects.
When your site has a high mobile-friendliness, there are a variety of benefits for your SEO, including:
- Indexability factor for SEO rankings
- Broader accessibility
- Increased user engagement
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Page speed analysis
It’s no secret that in this day and age, people are used to having the information they want in the blink of an eye. Research shows that approximately 40% of people are likely to click off a page if it doesn’t load in three seconds or less. A technical SEO audit will let you know your webpage speed so that you can strategize on how to improve it, such as compressing images or fixing redirects.
Want to complete a technical SEO audit for your mental healthcare website? BURG+CO. can help
How your mental healthcare site runs is just as important as its content. The technical aspects of your site impact the opinions of both the algorithm and the patients that you’re trying to reach. At BURG+CO., we provide UX/UI auditing services to healthcare brands like yours to make sure that your website is as professional and accessible as your services.
Our team has years of experience in helping healthcare brands improve their digital presence to attract new patients and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more potential patients to your site, we’re ready to talk about how we can help you.
Contact our team today for more information about digital marketing or to schedule a complimentary consultation.
