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What Every Developer Should Know About SEO

As a developer, you’re no stranger to the challenges of creating and maintaining a successful online presence for your projects. But have you ever considered how search engine optimization (SEO) can help you reach your goals more efficiently?

SEO doesn’t only mean better ranking for your (client’s) website. It means more visits, more exposure, more ROI and conversions, etc.

Ultimately knowing SEO basics, as a developer, can put you ahead of 80%-90% of other developers in every sense of the word.

It can help you generate some side income, but it can also help you increase your hourly rate, or give you an advantage when bidding for a project.

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In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the ins and outs of SEO and what every developer should know to maximize the visibility of their projects online.

So, let’s dive into the fascinating world of SEO and learn how to make your work shine in search engine results.

Understanding the Basics of SEO

Before we get into details of the technical aspects of SEO, it’s crucial to understand the fundamentals.

SEO is the process of improving a website or web application’s visibility in search engine results by optimizing content, structure, and other elements.

SEO starts with the first line of code and it, really, never ends. In order to be as effective as possible you have to take care of many little things.

The goal is to increase organic (non-paid) traffic by ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. Here are some key concepts that every developer should know:

  • Crawling and indexing: Search engines like Google use bots to crawl the web, discovering and indexing new content. Ensuring that your website or web application is easily discoverable and indexable is crucial for SEO success. Make sure that your content visibility and accessibility aren’t dependable on client-side rendering. You have to make your app either serve static content rendered on build time or be server-side rendered upon each request.
  • Keyword research: Identifying the right keywords to target is essential for any SEO strategy. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, or Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to find high-traffic, low-competition keywords relevant to your niche.
    These tools can be expensive if used with all features. But most of them offer a free trial or freemium that can help you get started.
  • On-page SEO: This refers to optimizing individual pages of a website or web application to rank higher in SERPs. It includes factors like keyword placement, content quality, and HTML tags (e.g., title, meta description, header tags).
  • Off-page SEO: This focuses on external factors that influence your rankings, such as backlinks (links from other websites to your content). Building a strong backlink profile can help improve your website or web application’s credibility, authority, and rankings.
  • Technical SEO: This involves optimizing your website or web application’s technical aspects, such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structured data, to improve crawling, indexing, and user experience.

Importance of Site Speed and Performance

Site speed is a critical factor for both user experience and SEO. Research shows that users are more likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Search engines like Google also prioritize fast-loading websites in their rankings.

When it comes to SEO you can think of it as this: Whatever helps your user achieve their goal faster and easier will certainly help your SEO.

Why? Because search engines’ ultimate task is to make their customers satisfied.

Because of that as a developer, you should focus on improving site speed and performance by:

  • Minimizing HTTP requests: Reduce the number of requests by combining and minifying CSS and JavaScript files, using CSS sprites for images, and leveraging browser caching. But this doesn’t mean that you have to put everything in one big 10MB file. It means finding the best possible technique to make your website as fast as possible.
  • Optimizing images: Compress and resize images to reduce file size without sacrificing quality. Use modern image formats like WebP for better compression and performance. This will help you serve high-quality images with low sizes. One small tip, don’t compress your images so much to ruin the quality. Instead, try different formats. Sometimes it is better to use JPEG than PNG or WebP, sometimes it’s not. Test it!
  • Implementing lazy loading: Load images and other media elements only when they are in the viewport to reduce initial loading times. Modern browsers are helping with this a lot. Most modern browsers support lazy loading out-of-the-box. Just use loading="lazy"attribute on your images.
  • Using a content delivery network (CDN): Distribute your content across a network of servers to reduce latency and improve site speed for users around the world.

Mobile-Friendly Design and Responsive Web Design

With the majority of internet users accessing the web through mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website or web application is essential. Google’s Mobile-First Indexing prioritizes mobile-friendly sites, making it a crucial factor for SEO.

Even though responsive web design became a thing more than a decade ago, you’ll be amazed by how many websites are still not optimized.

With modern frameworks, it is easier than ever to have a website that is ready for all screen sizes.

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design that ensures your content looks and functions well on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. To create a responsive design, implement the following techniques:

  • Fluid grids: Use relative units like percentages to define the width of elements instead of fixed units like pixels. This allows your layout to adapt to different screen sizes. You can use rem, em, %, vw, and vh interchangeably, where applicable. If you need to learn more about CSS units and their implications you can read our article: CSS Units Guide, everything you need to know.
  • Flexible images: Ensure that images scale and resize automatically to fit their containers. Set the CSS property max-width to 100% for images to prevent them from overflowing their containers. You can also leverage the srcset attribute to help browsers serve different image sizes for different screen sizes.
  • CSS media queries: Apply different styles based on the user’s device and screen size. Media queries allow you to adapt your design to various devices and orientations, ensuring a consistent user experience.
  • Prioritize mobile usability: Focus on touch-friendly design elements, easy-to-read font sizes, and streamlined navigation for mobile users. Always keep in mind accessibility and user experience. You can’t go wrong with these two.

Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data is a standardized way to provide information about a page’s content to search engines. By implementing structured data using schema markup, you can help search engines understand your content better and potentially enhance your search listings with rich results, such as review stars or event information.

As a developer, familiarize yourself with the different schema types and properties available at Schema.org. Implement structured data using JSON-LD (recommended by Google) or Microdata formats, and test your implementation using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

Optimizing URLs, Title Tags, and Meta Descriptions

URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions are essential elements of on-page SEO that developers should be aware of. These elements help search engines understand your content and display it effectively in SERPs.

  • URLs: Create descriptive, human-readable URLs that include your target keywords. Use hyphens to separate words and avoid using special characters or excessive parameters.
  • Title tags: Write unique, descriptive title tags for each page that accurately reflect its content. Keep title tags between 50-60 characters and include your target keywords.
  • Meta descriptions: Craft compelling meta descriptions that summarize the content of each page and encourage users to click through. Aim for 150-160 characters and include your target keywords.

Implementing Header Tags and Semantic HTML

Using proper header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) and semantic HTML elements helps search engines understand your content’s structure and hierarchy, which can improve your rankings. Follow these best practices:

  • Use only one H1 tag per page, representing the main topic or headline.
  • Organize content using appropriate subheadings (H2, H3, etc.) to break up sections and make your content more accessible.
  • Utilize semantic HTML elements (e.g., <article>, <section>, <nav>, and <aside>) to provide additional context and improve the accessibility of your content.

Harnessing the Power of Internal and External Linking

Linking to other pages, both within your website and to external sources, can improve your SEO by helping search engines understand your content’s context and relationships.

  • Internal linking: Create a well-structured internal linking strategy that connects related content within your website. This helps search engines crawl and index your content more efficiently and can improve user engagement and navigation.
  • External linking: Link to high-quality, relevant external sources to provide additional context and value for your users. Building relationships with reputable websites in your niche can also lead to valuable backlinks that boost your website’s authority and rankings.

When it comes to internal linking you should always be careful to structure your data in a meaningful way. E.g. here, on webinuse.com, you can see articles structured into categories. So when a search engine scrapes those pages, it can get all links and articles associated with it.

While internal linking can be hard and time-consuming, external linking is definitely much harder.

Be careful where you get your backlinks from. Having backlinks from sites with questionable authority, quality, or reputation, can do you more damage than good. Usually, it is almost always damage.

Try to get backlinks from high-quality websites from your niche. Even though it is hard and time-consuming, it will be worth it.

Conclusion

SEO is an essential skill for developers who want their projects to thrive in the competitive digital landscape.

By understanding the fundamentals of SEO and applying the best practices outlined in this guide, you can optimize your websites and web applications for search engines and users alike.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous learning, testing, and adaptation to stay ahead of the competition and algorithm updates. So, keep exploring, experimenting, and growing your SEO knowledge to ensure your projects reach their full potential online.

Keep in mind that this article is not Holy Grail and it is a bare introduction to SEO for web developers.

If you want to learn more about SEO you should definitely find some good SEO courses. I highly recommend this course by Nat Miletic. It is affordable, beginner-friendly, and a really good starting point.