Last month, we hosted our February 2025 technical SEO webinar, sharing insights on how to improve your site's visibility in an increasingly complex search landscape. While AI search engines are emerging as new players, we emphasized that traditional search engine optimization remains crucial, with Google still commanding about 90% of the global search market share.
If you'd like a recording, let us know at support@rebelmouse.com.
Here are the key takeaways:
Understanding How Search Engines Work
We broke down the three fundamental processes of search engines:
- Crawling: How search engines discover your content.
- External Links: Backlinks and social mentions
- Internal Links: Site structure, manual links, and recirculation units
- Direct Submission: Via XML sitemaps and RSS Feeds
- Indexing: How search engines understand your content.
- Content Quality: Original, helpful content with strong E-E-A-T signals
- On-Page SEO: Proper HTML structure and media optimization
- Technical Setup: Clean site structure and user experience
- Ranking/Serving: How search engines deliver your content to users.
- Relevance Signals: Location, language, and device context
- Search UI Elements: Snippets, rich results, and images
- Technical Implementation: Performance metrics and mobile-friendliness
Smart Internal Linking Strategies
We introduced our latest SmartLinks 2.0 features that enable:
- Section-specific link targeting
- Page previews on hover
- Source qualification for better contextual relevance
SmartLinks help editorial teams automatically add consistent internal links at scale, saving time while improving both the user experience and search engine crawlability.
The Power of Structured Data
Properly implemented structured data helps search engines better understand your content and can lead to enhanced search results with:
- Recipe carousels
- Product information
- Video thumbnails
- Author expertise signals
We covered how author structured data in particular supports E-E-A-T signals by connecting content with verifiable expertise and credentials.
Regular SEO Audits: Your Website's Fitness Routine
Just like physical fitness, SEO health requires consistent effort:
- One audit doesn't transform your site
- Consistent, targeted improvements drive results
- Track progress and adapt strategies
- Build strength through systematic optimization
Technical SEO Best Practices
Optimize User Experience
We emphasized that what's good for users is good for search engines:
- Implement proper site search functionality
- Create engaging 404 pages that guide users forward
- Balance marketing pop-ups with user experience
- Optimize Core Web Vitals for better performance
Clean Up Technical Issues
Regular maintenance should focus on:
- Addressing broken links and redirects
- Eliminating duplicate content
- Optimizing titles and meta descriptions
- Following on-page SEO best practices
Q&A Highlights
We addressed a coupe of technical SEO questions:
Q: What are some of the biggest red flags you've encountered while auditing clients' websites? And was there a specific moment that fundamentally shifted RebelMouse's approach to technical SEO?
A: While we've identified numerous critical technical SEO issues in our audits, our approach to technical SEO didn't change because of a single "eureka" moment. Instead, our methodology evolved through continuous iteration and learning. Rather than dramatic shifts, RebelMouse's technical SEO strategy developed organically through progressive refinement, adaptation to algorithm changes, and practical experience across diverse client implementations.
Q: Should we redirect older yearly content to the newest version?
A: For evergreen annual content (like "Technology Trends for 2025"), we recommended maintaining an archive rather than redirecting, as this preserves:
- Accumulated backlinks for each year's content
- Historical context for users
- Clean URL structure without redirect chains
Next Steps
For those looking to improve their technical SEO, we recommend these tools:
- Google Search Console for direct insights from Google
- Semrush for comprehensive technical site auditing
- Screaming Frog for deep crawling capabilities
- RebelBoost from RebelMouse is a CMS-agnostic add-on for significantly improving your technical SEO
Our next webinar on content SEO will take place on March 19, 2025, at 1 p.m. ET. Sign up here to continue your SEO learning journey.
Learn more about RebelMouse's technical SEO services here.
