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A 5-Step Guide to Diagnosing Technical SEO Problems

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I’m going to keep the intro short, because I’m assuming you’re coming here amid technical SEO chaos, a fire, maybe even just a fire drill (that has a lot of executive attention).

Below is a process for fighting technical SEO flames. It may help your life, or it may not, chance are we don’t know each other, so why should I make assumptions about what’s useful to you.

Anyway, if you’re looking to a quick audit list, you should probably just skip to step 4. I won’t hold it against you.

You may miss out on some good random takeaways along the way, but most people don’t read anyways. Well, except you, since you’re still here and it turned out to be not that short of an intro after all…

Step 1: Panic Disengaged

Close your email. (This process works better if you actually follow the process).

OK, now take in a deep breath in 1.2.3.4.5… now breath out, 1.2.3.4.

Alright, now stop reading this blog. Maybe go grab some water, coffee, tea.

Take a walk outside (unless it’s frigid, then definitely don’t do that). This post will be here when you get back.

(Hopefully, you came back…)

Now to lessen your nerves – turn into a robot. Just kidding. But you get the point – nerves, anxiety, and the mental load – life can serve us a lot.

It can be hard to reach a place where emotions and nerves aren’t intertwined, especially when faced with stress. At the same time, it’s important to approach technical SEO problems with a clear, analytical, logical mindset.

Sometimes this “mode” comes with more experience, genetic, personality type, or horoscope.

For the rest of us we can:

When you’re ready to tackle the issue, solve some problems, roll up your sleeves, and deep dive into the data – this post will be here for you (or on some other site that has pirated the content).

The point is, that you’ll find it somewhere online, so give yourself a minute.

Step 2: Understand the Problem

Before we can attempt to solve problems, we have to understand the problem. That means you’re going to have to face that panic-ridden email (and/or voice message and/or pager note) again.

Look it in its beady little email eyes and extrapolate all necessary information you (and your squad team) needs to find a solution.

Some questions to answer:

Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

And he had more experience problem-solving than me, so I’ll defer to his expertise.

Step 3: Make a Plan (…or Part of One)

You may be thinking: alright, now I get the problem, now is the time to attack the data. And… you could.

Or maybe…we could start with a making a plan.

Let me sell it to you.

If you have a plan – you have vision. You are mapping the path to your success (allowing room for detours).

This can save a ton of time in the end, when you are avoiding scope and the myriad of pitfalls that affect our productivity and ability to execute correctly the first (few) time(s).

Plus, making a plan includes making a hypothesis. And hypothesizing is important enough for the scientific process.

Note: making a plan doesn’t have to be a formal process. It can be some notes jotted in a .txt or .md file.

Basically, what you need:

Step 4: Do Plan (+Analyzing)

Now it’s time to take action, activate your plan, fight the chaos.

This step involves genuinely looking at your hypothesis, not as an extension of yourself (or your smarts, or your ego), but as a genuine issue.

Taking that issue and trying to build a case for or against it.

For you, dear reader, I did some reflecting on where to start with diagnosing technical SEO issues and common ones.

Maybe others start somewhere different (tell me in the comments – let me learn the ways, sensei (bows)).

And, of course, (we must keep in mind) that some problems are better solved with certain tools.

But, instead of nitpick, let’s generalize all of our work, and make a set of arbitrary steps that may* not help at all (yay!).

Regardless, here is a general process that I use, when I’m handed a problem:

  1. User-agent switcher to Googlebot and check the site.
  2. Check DOM (that’s the DevTools, i.e., right click > inspect > element tab).
  3. Throw URLs in Screaming Frog (or other equivalent crawlers) and see if the issue can be found.
  4. Check analytics platform and Google Search Console (GSC) data.
    • Review relevant data in analytics platform (think: Google Analytics or Adobe) + GSC + Bing Webmaster Tools.
      • Side note: I wrote an article (as an SEO guppy) that has checklists for determining shifts in organic search data fluctuations. Check it out for ideas on deep diving into analytics shifts.
  5. Check your keyword ranking tracker.
  6. Check your log files (especially if it’s a crawling related issue).

Common Roots of Technical SEO Problems

Some more context around (if you’re interested):

Crawling Issues

Rendering

Indexing

Rankings

New Tech

Our session on #javascript and #seo at 1:30pm tomorrow will be LIT
Come to stage 3 to see what it's all about

Amongst other things, we'll talk:
Web app architectures
Googlebot
Lazy loading
Web APIs
Testing
Crawl budget & more!https://t.co/6CGsiGgg9w pic.twitter.com/b4MnvpSmWt

Step 5: Suggest a Solution (Or Something That Gets Closer to One) + Write a *Succinct* Response

The motto:

“…Me think why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?” –Kevin Malone, The Office

Note: If you have a minute (watch Kevin’s famous chili), it’ll make ya chuckle.

You should have at this stage:

Here is one of my (personal) favorite formats for receiving emails:

Hello {person},

Thanks for sending that over! We dug into it and here’s what we recommend and found. (Niceties not necessary but appreciated.)

Recommended solution: {insert solution}

Issue cause: {understand the when and why to prevent it from happening}

Analysis note: {insert notes, bullet list, with labeled screenshots that tell a data analysis story of a journey (maybe even links to the reports, so I can check them out myself}

Your favorite friend right now,

{signature}

Read a completed version of this email (with all of the details) aloud softly and it’s basically ASMR for a technical SEO.

A Note for People on Conference Calls Who Are Facing a Fire(Drill)

  1. Don’t panic.
    • Take a long breath (on mute, not in everyone’s ear, no one wants to hear your breathing).
  2. Try to ask questions that will enable you to wrap your head around the problem (and buy some brain processing time).
  3. If you don’t know the answer at the moment – admit it (it’s OK to not know everything, that’s what Google’s job is) and use the power of “fast follow-ups.”
    • Tip: Be vocal about the time you need to provide quality work and what you need the time for. You may need time to:
      • Dive into the data.
      • Consult with the team (and/or) manager.
      • Consult specific subject matter experts.
      • Simply to evaluate and process the options.
  1. Make sure to follow up in a timely manner (an obvious step, that I knew you would already do, because you’re awesome).

A Note for People Without Technical SEO Fires

Maybe you’ve read this far, and you’ve never had a fire(drill). I appreciate you for reading this far and truthfully, I envy, respect, and want to be you.

But I wanted to give you something too, because you deserve it. If your UX is perfect – humans and bots alike love you, you’ve been through everything on this list.

Well – you can always aim to improve site speed. It’s not a great gift, but I don’t know you, so why should I be expected to know the best gift for you.

Closing Thoughts

Thanks for sticking in there, fighting the good fight, and reading this far (or skipping to the conclusion and missing out on all the great insights in the middle!).

Here’s a summary, in case you are really in need of the quick list.

Steps for Dealing with Fire(Drill)

  1. Get into the right state of mind.
  2. Seek to understand the problem.
  3. Make plan a (even if it’s a plan on how to analyze).
  4. Execute the plan (and or analyzing).
  5. Suggest a solution (or something that gets closer to one).
  6. Write a succinct write-up (with detailed analysis notes).
  7. Take another breather, switch out of high-focus mode and take a moment to appreciate yourself and your work (because you just rocked that analysis).
  8. You maybe also find a ton of potential action items to focus on (here).
  9. Question, play, learn, test, report, repeat – QPLTRR. (The acronym could use some re-work, but it’s the vibe that counts!)
  10. Reach out in the comments or on Twitter @AlexisKSanders.

(yes, those are pockets on the retro mario version of myself escaping down a mario pipe… and yes, it only took me about 1.5 hours to make this….)

*or may not

More Resources:

Image Credits

Featured Image:
In-Post Images/Screenshots: Created/taken by author, August 2019
Scientific method diagram: Science Buddies


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