Impact of Technical SEO
— Biggest risk to technical SEO success
Most respondents (28%) identified technical debt as the biggest risk, followed by a lack of resources (23%).
— Most effective metric for measuring SEO performance
The majority (49%) stated conversions are the most effective metric, with organic traffic (35%) and rankings (12%) following.
— Expected time for technical SEO changes to impact traffic
A plurality (44%) of technical SEOs expect changes to take up to three months to impact traffic.
— Influence of Google’s algorithm updates on SEO planning
A slight majority (54%) indicated that Google’s formal announcements do not change their SEO planning and roadmap.
Technical SEO Tools and Platforms
— Most used tools for technical SEO work
Google Search Console was used by 93% of respondents, making it the most popular, followed by Screaming Frog (88%) and SEMrush (67%).
— Preferred single tool for technical SEO
Screaming Frog was the top choice for a single technical SEO tool, chosen by 42% of respondents.
— Top tools for website crawling
Screaming Frog again led with 92% usage for crawling, followed by SEMrush (29%) and Ahrefs (26%).
— Preferred tool for crawling a website if only one could be chosen
Screaming Frog was overwhelmingly preferred, chosen by 78% of respondents.
— Tools used for assessing search visibility
SEMrush was most popular (69%), followed by Ahrefs (56%) and Sistrix (18%).
— Preferred tool for search visibility assessment if limited to one
SEMrush was the preferred tool for 45% of respondents.
— Tools used for log file analysis
Screaming Frog was used by 78% for log file analysis, with Botify a distant second (11%).
— Preferred tool for log file analysis if limited to one
Screaming Frog was the choice of 72% of respondents.
— Tools used for measuring organic search rankings
Google Search Console was most used (77%), followed by SEMrush (60%) and Ahrefs (45%).
— Preferred tool for measuring organic search rankings if limited to one
Google Search Console was the top choice, selected by 42% of respondents.
Preferences for SEO Platforms
— Preferred non-eCommerce platform
WordPress was the preferred non-eCommerce platform for 65% of respondents.
— Most problematic non-eCommerce platform
Wix was considered the most problematic, cited by 17% of respondents.
— Favorite eCommerce platform for technical SEO
Shopify was slightly preferred, chosen by 44% of respondents, with WooCommerce (25%) and Magento (14%) following.
— Most problematic eCommerce platform
Magento was viewed as the most problematic, noted by 37% of respondents.
— Preferred project management tool
There was a tie between Asana and JIRA, each chosen by 23% of respondents, with Trello following at 11%.