10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a Developer
First off, what is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.
Here are 10 ways to improve search engine optimization for your website as a developer and improve your page reach and results.
1. Research your keywords
Understand what users are looking for. Research your competition to select which keywords you want your pages to rank for. Always remember that longer keywords means fewer competition.
2. Content is always King
You should know your target audience better than anyone else. Write your content with your user’s needs in mind. Educate your users and be relevant. Even better, keep it longer than 600 words but don’t stuff your text with keywords —use synonyms.
3. Use Metatags and Open Graph Types
Metatags help search engines understand what your content is about. It’s important to include them in the <head> tag and describe your page title, page description and content , social media appearance , and more.
4. Organize your Headers and Use Semantics
In your page body, observe your header hierarchy. The rule is simple, use on <h1> header, half <h2> headers, and <h3> <h4> headers you can use indefinitely. Format your content for readability and use headers wisely.
5. Give your URLs a Purpose
Pages URLs benefit from keywords, give them meaningful paths. If you have already published a page with a bad URL, be sure to update it and redirect users.
6. Internal linking
Use anchor texts! Internal linking is critical if you want to improve the ability of crawlers to index your website’s pages and improve UX giving context to your page sections. Link pages of your website between each other using meaningful and relevant text.
7. Use ALT text on images
Alternative text is read by screen readers used by visually impaired people. Using the ALT text not only improves accessibility but also helps search engines understand what your images are about.
8. Mobile-friendly design
More and more users are consuming websites through smartphones and tablets. Make sure your websites perform great on both desktop and mobile devices. Media queries significantly help with responsiveness.
9. Page Speed and User experience
Recently Google introduced Web Essentials — a set of evaluation points about your user’s on-site experience. Evaluate and follow these points to improve your page’s performance and reduce bounce rates of your pages.
12. Limit Duplicated Content
Search engines and users like fresh, new, and unique content. Try to avoid creating duplicated content on different URLs. If duplicating content is needed: Add rel=”canonical” to the index page of your website content.
That’s it and you’re on your way to skyrocketing your website SEO.
“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.” –Wendy Piersall
