Developers usually create the architecture and implement the business logic of a project without delving into the peculiarities of SEO. SEO specialists take up site optimization at the last stages of development, which is not really great. Because of this approach, they need to adjust the final product by changing meta tags, attributes for links, etc. So why experiment when your business is at stake? Developers can easily improve SEO as they build a project. We will tell you what programmers need to do to improve the ranking of a site in a search engine.
Correct titles and meta descriptions
Meta titles and meta descriptions are important components of the HTML code in a webpage’s <head>. This is the snippet that users see in search results. Thanks to this text, web crawlers understand the content of the page.
Copywriters and SEO specialists generate metadata. However, if an application is too large, developers must automatically create a title and description in the backend. To do this, they add the necessary keyword meta tags and set the viewport meta tag, providing proper alt attributes of images and CSS classes instead of inline styles.
Image source: searchenginejournal.com
Generation of meta tags and microdata
Meta tags are invisible to users. This component of a web page is located in the HTML code, inside the <head>…</head> tag. Meta tags tell a search engine important information about the page: title, description, keywords, copyright, language, and so on.
With the help of tags, a site indexes in the search engine. Without them, users will not find the page on the Internet. Though tags are on the backend, they improve SEO. To generate meta tags, developers often use special services such as Free Meta Tag Generator.
Microdata is a common language understood by Google, Yandex, and Yahoo search robots. Microdata signals the priority and type of page elements. This is important because search robots do not understand the meaning of the content and cannot prioritize it.
For example, if you mark the contact information block on the “Contacts” page with microdata, Google responds to a user request for the address and phone number of a company, displaying the correct information.
Setting up the robots.txt file
Robots.txt is a text file located at the root of the site’s domain. It tells search engines which pages can be indexed and where the sitemap is located. To hide the page from the robot and the user, use the noindex directive.
A sitemap file can be called a site navigator. It tells you what content is placed in the app and where exactly it is located, which sections are the most important, when priority pages were updated, and so on. Here you can add additional information about different types of content:
- type, duration, and age restrictions of a video
- what is shown in the pictures and what are the licensing conditions
- what the title of the published news is, when they were posted, and other similar information
A search robot reads the sitemap and understands how to crawl it more reasonably. A sitemap is needed if the site has a large archive of poorly connected pages that can only be found through the search form.
Nofollow and noindex tags
Add these tags to the source HTML code of a page to give the crawler some guidance and improve SEO.
Nofollow recommends that the robot does not follow the link and crawl the corresponding URLs. At the same time, the robot can still index the link if other factors influence it. However, with the nofollow tag, the chance of this is significantly lower.
It is possible to set up the page so that all outgoing links are nofollow and do not have page weight. To add a dofollow link, you must manually enter the tag through the CMS.
Noindex excludes pages from indexing so that they do not appear in search results.
SEO for developers: adding canonical URLs
Sometimes, duplication of website content occurs, which affects its ranking in the search engine. Likewise, a similar situation occurs with an online store when different categories include the same product. When this happens, search engines cannot determine which version of a page they must rank in search.
You can solve this by adding the rel=”canonical” attribute. The page specified in this attribute becomes the priority page. Thus, only this duplicate will be indexed.
Alternative text
Alternative text describes pictures and photographs on the page. Such inscriptions help people with visual impairments use an application. Plus, robots can better index an image. If the image does not load, the description will give a visitor an idea of its approximate content.
Certain rules create alternative text. For example, make it less than 125 characters and not spammed with keywords. When an image has no value, it transfers to CSS. If you need to describe a complex image, use the longdesc attribute for it. By adding alternative text, developers will help to optimize a website.
H1, H2, and H3 headings
Page headings perform two important functions: they provide a site with a ranking and structure the HTML code. Like the above tags, the H1, H2, and H3 headings are “beacons” for robots that indicate what is on the page and where it is located.
Utilize H1 once as the main heading per page. The rest of the headers remain optional and can be used multiple times. They are also built according to the following SEO rules:
- contain keywords
- are unique
- the main keyword is located closer to the beginning of the title
- no longer than 60 characters
- H1 is located above all headings and has a larger font
- must not include links to other pages
- images used as titles
To check heading tags on a site, use SEMRush, SiteBulb Crawler, DeepCrawl, Screaming Frog, or other services.
URL redirection
If a page deletes or its URL changes, utilize a URL redirection. Essentially, this means redirecting users or robots to another page. With the help of redirection, a site mirror defines. It is the main version to which it redirects all users.
For example, if a site mirror is https://ift.tt/MvbG8sy, then requests to https://ift.tt/9FOzKnr, http://andersenlab.com/ redirects to the main address. Redirects don’t hurt SEO, but poor implementation likely leads to traffic loss.
Image Source: cloudsavvyit.com
Page Speed Optimization
Experts say that three seconds is the optimal time to load a page. Low speed affects the ranking of a website and makes it drop.
Developers can speed up page loading in the following ways to improve SEO:
- enable file compression
- minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- reduce redirecting
- stop render-blocking
- use browser caching
- optimize images
- improve server response time, etc.
Services such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Lighthouse help track site performance.
SEO URL Optimization
A URL is an address that specifies the path to a page on the Internet. It replaces numbers (IP addresses) used to communicate with servers with human-readable text—built in the format of “protocol: // domain-name.top-level-domain/path”.
For the URL to work in favor of SEO promotion, it must be unique, short (up to 90 characters), and include a keyword.
Conclusion
Developers play an important role in creating an SEO strategy. They do not only participate in the creation of applications but also help to promote websites in search engines. Consider the above recommendations at the stage of creating a web application to improve SEO. Thus, no wasting time changing the structure and logic of your site, and its promotion after the product’s developed.
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