When web developers create a new site, or approach a site redesign, they seldom do so from the perspective of search engine optimisation (SEO). Instead, their goal is to inject a high level of aesthetic appeal. Flash videos and engaging images take precedence over a site architecture designed for easy search engine indexing and competitive organic ranking. Indeed, it is a rare developer who considers SEO a priority.
The challenge is that the development process can cause enormous problems with regard to a website's ability to rank well. Because search engine optimisation is a core marketing strategy, these problems often have a severe impact on a site's profitability. With this in mind, here are 13 SEO techniques every web developer should integrate into a site's design:
#1 - Streamline Your Code
Many web developers create attractive sites, but the underlying code they use is staggeringly heavy. Search engine spiders enjoy efficient, light code. They can crawl it more quickly and index it more accurately. Not only does that lead to higher organic rankings for a site's target keywords, but it's also easier to maintain those rankings.
It's worth noting that clean code does not hamper a web developer's design creativity. It merely streamlines a page's structure. For example, an external CSS file can accomplish the same thing as a heavy HTML table, but it does so with far less code.
#2 - Choose One Main Keyword For Each Page
For optimal search engine optimisation, each page should be designed to focus upon one main keyword. The content, tags, and surrounding code on the page should be developed to emphasize that keyword. Two or three secondary keywords can be used to add thematic support, but the main keyword should be the priority.
#3 - Place Keywords In Title Tags
Organic search algorithms rely heavily on page titles to determine the thematic relevance of a page's topic to a searcher's query. If all pages within a site's architecture have similar title tags, that will have a negative influence on each page's respective ability to rank competitively. Each page should have a unique title that includes its primary keyword. Furthermore, that keyword should be placed as closely as possible at the beginning of the title.
#4 - Use "Friendly" URLs
A site's URL structure plays a key role in supporting - or hampering - the owner's SEO efforts. Web developers will often design a site with URLs that are unfriendly to search engine spiders. For example, pages might look like the following: domain.com/?page24&num=4197&fs=thur34&q=dr476
While spiders can crawl such URLs, their ability to index them properly is limited. What's more, the above URL does little to support the page's main keyword. If a page is focused on "running shoes," the following URL would be far more search engine "friendly": domain.com/running-shoes/. Search algorithms can identify keywords within an URL; they are used to further identify thematic relevance to se ...