The job and responsibility of a web developer is much more than just designing and developing an application. Along with adding right set of features in the app, they also need to take proactive actions that makes sure to enhance the user experience. SEO and its relevance also fall under this category and incorporating its techniques is very necessary while developing the application if you want the app to perform well in the search engine rankings. This blog is a guide for the web developers to keep them updated on the latest techniques of SEO which they should be using while developing a web app.
Let’s go through the basics of SEO first –
It stands for Search Engine Optimization, when any keyword is typed on browser, the search engine decides how to display the results i.e. which web pages will come in the first 10 results and which comes next. The algorithms of search engine use the stored data about each webpage and decides which webpage offer the closest content regarding the keywords of the user. You just need to convince the algorithms that your web page is the one that has the most relevant content the user is looking for.
In addition to the content, the algorithms display the website with best user experiences and as a developer, your accountability lies in the technical side of SEO. This requires some code additions, changes and tweaks for optimization. Now let’s go through the essential tips of SEO for the web developers. A web developer should keep these things in mind for SEO while developing an app –
The crawlers of search engine look for certain HTML tags on the web page to determine the type of content it is offering. The most important tags are the title and meta description tags. If the meta tags of a website are written by yourself, you also need to consider the relevance of keywords.
In the terms of search engine, keywords are the short or long phrases users type in the search box. First, you need to identify the relevant keywords that will drive the users to your web page. Use those keywords in the most important places like web page’s title tag and H1 tag. They can also be used in other headlines and paragraphs.
The most effective position to place a keyword in a title tag is its beginning. It can also be used anywhere inside the title and it should not be longer than 60 characters including special characters and spaces.
Meta description weigh less on the outcome of the ranking algorithm. Since it is displayed on the SERP and users get an idea about the content on the web page, it should be written in the way that the user clicks on the link to your web page.
The web developers should use robots.txt file to intimate the search engines to not crawl the pages specified in a file. If the crawlers are blocked from particular web page, this stops the requests of crawlers from overwhelming the server of app. The robot.txt file can also be used to prevent web pages from being indexed on Google or other search engines. The page could still get indexed if any other page is linked to the current page. You can add the noindex robots meta tag to the HTML code of the page to remove the indexing once and for all.
A search engine crawler crawls the linked pages inside a page that it is already visiting. If you want to prevent a linked web page from getting associated with your site, then you can pass nofollow as the value of the rel attribute. If you want the crawler to now follow any of your links then instruct them in a single line on your meta robots tag.
This is one of the main aspects for providing an enhanced user experience to the users. As per a survey conducted by Google, the chances of bounce increase by 32% when page load time goes from 1 second to 3 second and increases by 90% when page load time goes to 5 second. Google made it as a ranking factor use in the ranking algorithm as page speed is very relevant in user experience. Google’s Lighthouse is an amazing tool to measure the performance of your site. It tells the accurate page speed in perfect network conditions and even in crappy connections.
Google took the mobile friendliness factor into its ranking algorithm as a mobile-friendly website offers an enhanced user experience. When the number of users accessing the web through mobile phones are all time high then no second thoughts should be given to transform your web app to serve the mobile users in a better way. The points you should keep in mind during this transformation are -
A responsive design of the web app would have the minimum impact on the existing codebase. New viewport meta tags can be set for more flexibility for different screen resolutions. Using a dynamic design helps in serving different HTML content to desktop and mobile users after detecting the user-agent type requesting the content.
Generally, the subdomain has a similar name to m.example.com or mobile.example.com but it takes lot of effort and time in implementation. You should use a separate subdomain for the mobile users.
A web developer’s job description never includes SEO practices but considering SEO is a must to deliver a complete web app to the client. You have read the most important aspects of SEO on which web developers should focus. There are many technical SEO practices which impacts the ranking algorithm’s decision and these should be used by the developers to rank their website on the top of search result page.
Digital Crafters is the leading digital marketing SEO company who have happy customers as their real asset. With our advanced technologies and proficient SEO team, we can help you in enhancing your bottom line with an SEO campaign specially designed for your business needs. At Digital Crafters, we offer the most effective and affordable Search Engine Optimization services and actively work with the clients in India and beyond. With our integrated strategy for SEO, you can get an edge over competition combining SEO, research, content marketing, social media and other marketing services.
Write to us at info@digitalcrafters.tech for more details about our services.
