SEO Best Practices for Web Developers
Asher Best • September 7, 2024
Have you ever wondered why the website you have developed is not visible on the first few pages when searching certain keywords within search engines such as Google? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of making your website more visible to search engine crawlers in order to appear higher in search engine results. By incorporating SEO best practices within your website development process, you will increase the chances of your website ranking higher in search engine algorithms from launch. There are three main categories of SEO implementations to consider when developing your website:
Technical
On-Page
Off-Page
Technical
Load time—The longer your page takes to load leads to higher bounce rates and crawlers less likely to index your site. Improve your site speed by simplifying your codebase, compressing images, reducing dynamic content generation, and utilizing Content Delivery Networks (CDN).
Mobile-first—Google uses mobile-first indexing and 54.8% of web traffic is mobile (1). It is paramount that you design your websites with a mobile-first mindset.
Sitemaps—Sitemaps give crawlers a means to record your websites directory and structure.
Canonical tags—If your website has multiple versions, canonical tags allow you to tell crawlers which version of your website should take precedence.
HTTPS—Ensure that your website is secured and current with a valid digital certificate.
Structured data—A method that utilizes JSON-LD to give crawlers an even better idea of how your content is structured.
On-Page
Tags—Title and meta tags ensure that each web page has a title and description that uniquely and accurately describes the content of the page. Header tags enable a hierarchy to your page's content through the use of H1, H2, and H3 tags.
Alternative Text—It is important to express your visual content in text form (3). This can be accomplished through the alt HTML attribute for img elements.
URL—The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of each page should accurately describe the content of the page but be sure to keep it short and simple.
Content—Having high-quality and unique content makes your website standout to search engines. Keywords are an important aspect of crawling but be sure not to overload your pages with keywords as this practice will diminish your ranking in search engines.
Off-Page
Follow links—If other credible websites are linking your website within their content, you are more likely to appear higher in search engine results so long as the link does not include the nofollow HTML attribute (2).
Social media—With the emergence of social media, reaching new audiences has never been easier. Including links to your website will increase the odds of crawlers recognizing your website.
Outreach—Developing your network of peers could potentially lead to referrals on their websites which will, in turn, drive traffic to yours.
When developing your own or a client's website, you should keep these best practices in mind during the very early stages of development. Incorporating these best practices will give you competitive advantage when attempting to climb the ranks in search engines. Remember, it is important to incorporate many layers of SEO implementation to improve your odds at standing out in search engines. Best of luck!
Resources
1. Patel, Neil. 8 Must-Know SEO Best Practices for Developers, NP Digital,
https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-developers/.
2. Marrs, Megan. Follow Links Vs. No Follow Links: Should You Care?, WordStream, 14 Nov. 2023,
www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/07/24/follow-nofollow-links.
3. SEO Guide for Web Developers, Google,
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/get-started-developers.
4. Web Performance and SEO Best Practices and Guidelines, Washington Post, 31 May 2023,
build.washingtonpost.com/resources/guides/performance-and-seo.