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Why Web Developers Should Learn SEO?

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Indeed, the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process can take the website’s success to the next level. Still, a majority of Web Developers don’t find it relevant to learn SEO skills for Web Development. Okay, let’s assume a situation – a Web Developer builds an attractive & technical-advanced website but ignores the SEO aspects. Now, as there are more than a billion websites available over the web, it becomes quite difficult for search engines to rank such unoptimized websites on top positions that further leads to less traffic & lower conversion rates. And that’s why Web Developers are required to learn & care about SEO as well along with other technical skills while developing a website. Moreover, if you’re a Web Developer then having appropriate Search Engine Optimization skills can get you various ravishing career opportunities!!

Why-Web-Developers-Should-Learn-SEO

Before moving further, let’s have a brief introduction to the SEO Process. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a practice of improving the website ranking in search engines to gain more traffic and conversion rates. However, SEO is a never-ending and recurring process but the process becomes more pivotal at the earliest stages of website development. Hence, Web Developers are recommended to have some SEO skills and build an SEO-friendly website for worthwhile outcomes!! Now, let’s take a look at several major benefits of using Search Engine Optimization Process during the Website Development:

  • It enhances the site ranking that further helps to gain more visitors.
  • It helps to improve the user experience and usability of a website.
  • Also, it helps the websites to achieve higher ROI and conversions.
  • An SEO-friendly Website also improves Website Speed & Security, etc.

Okay, so as of now, you are aware that having SEO skills are quite crucial for Web Developers. Furthermore, let’s discuss several major aspects of SEO which a Developer must keep in mind while developing a website:

1. Optimized Site Architecture  

This is the first & foremost task that a Web Developer needs to perform – Establish an optimized website architecture! The website architecture is majorly concerned with the structure of your site such as how the navigation process of your site works, how are the pages aligned & interlinked, etc. An optimized website architecture not only makes it easier for the search engine crawlers to find & index the website but it also improves the user’s experience and website credibility. Although the website architecture depends on the website domain & niche still there are several general recommendations such as Flat Site architecture, etc. that a Web Developer should follow.

2. Appropriate Title Tag

Although it seems a minor SEO aspect still it plays a crucial role in website development. A title tag is generally an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. An optimized and appropriate title tag is necessary for a website as it is displayed to the users on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for a particular query. Hence, Web Developers must keep in mind that it should be relevant & concise as per the website content. Moreover, the title tags are also displayed at the top of your web browser & while social sharing.

3. Relevant Meta Description

Alike Title Tags, Meta Description is also an HTML element that signifies a quick summary of the website or a web page. It is often displayed on the Search Engine Results Pages and leads to an increase in the click-through rate of the website. However, Meta Description is not mandatory and even search engines extract it itself from the web page but web developers are strongly recommended to use well-optimized & relevant meta description for better results. Moreover, you are recommended to use around 155–160 characters and write the unique meta description.

4. Optimized URLs

Yes, you heard it right! You’re also required to work on URLs to meet SEO criteria and improve user experience as well. A Uniform Resource Locator or you can say (web address) tends the location of the web page on the internet. Indeed, an ideal & well-optimized URL helps the search engines and well as users to identify the niche of the respective web page. It should be concise and in an optimal format. Meanwhile, Web Developers are also recommended to work on other areas related to URLs such as – URL Canonicalization, forwarding one URL to another URL (Redirects), and various others. 

5. Meta Robot Tags

Meta Robot Tags are one of the crucial parts of SEO during website development that is used to instruct the search engines for how to crawl or index web pages & what to follow and what not to follow in the website content. There are various parameters for robot meta tags such as you can use Index / Noindex to tell search engines whether to crawl the web page or not, use Follow / Nofollow to instruct whether to crawl the links on the page or not, etc. Moreover, you can use X-Robots-Tag also as an element of the HTTP response header.

6. Structured Data

Structured Data concerns with organized data or information about the website that makes it easier for search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc. to understand what the website (or web pages) is all about. The web developers are required to embed this piece of code on the website to improve the site rankings & credibility. Moreover, Schema.org is the most recommended approach to structured data markup for SEO aspects. You can mark up the structured data in various formats such as Microdata, JSON-LD, RDFa, and many more.  

7. Appropriate Linking

Indeed, Linking has always been considered as one of the most crucial and impactful SEO practice for a website. And, it is required to be considered by the developers in the development stage as well. However, while building a website, you need to emphasize more on Internal Links on the website to make it easier for the search engines to understand the site hierarchy and to make the navigation process easier for the users also. In case, if the web pages are not interconnected with one another, the search engines will find difficulties while crawling & indexing and won’t display the pages in SERPs.

8. Better Page Loading Speed

Regardless of embedding numerous advanced features, if you develop a website with slow page loading speed then it will not appreciate by anyone on the planet!! Even, Google has also indicated page speed as one of its ranking factors to rank websites. Indeed, A better page loading speed is a must for a website to provide better user experiences and to achieve the Search Engine Optimization goals. Hence, Web Developers are required to work on several parameters such as reduce redirects, optimized the images & codes, leverage browser caching, etc. to improve the page loading speed.

9. Responsive Website  

As the number of smartphone users is increasing rapidly, developers are required to build a website that is compatible with mobile phones as well along with desktop, PCs, or other devices. And here comes the scenario of Responsive Websites! It is concerned with those websites that don’t require separate versions of a website to run on multiple devices instead these responsive sites are adaptable to run on any devices effectively. Moreover, apart from the users’ perspectives, mobile-friendly websites also preferred by search engines as they meet the SEO criteria.

10. Secured Website 

Last but not least, the security outlooks of a website is also one of the crucial SEO aspects for a developer while building a website. As it is known that HTTPS is already a ranking signal and there are other factors as well that indicate the secured websites are preferable by search engines for ranking. Apart from the Search Engine Optimization perspectives, website security is also essential to avoid data loss, data breaching, and other related situations and to build factor of trustworthiness & authenticity among the users.

So, these are several major Search Engine Optimization aspects that are required to be taken into consideration by the developers while building a website. Moreover, there are many other factors as well such as local search optimization, conversion rate optimization, etc. that can be considered while website development. Hence, Web Developers are strongly recommended to learn SEO skills and further implement the knowledge on their upcoming projects to make the websites more worthwhile & profitable & to create better user experiences!!



Last Updated : 01 Dec, 2023
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