SEO Essential Guide for Web Developers: Unveiling Key SEO Practices You Can't Afford to Overlook. Introduction In the realm of contemporary digital marketing, SEO reigns supreme. The Internet, now integral to addressing our daily needs, serves as a hub for shopping, community-building, information retrieval, and more. It has evolved into the go-to platform for businesses, whether dealing in tangible or intangible products, to showcase and expand their ventures. Crucial to this virtual landscape are Web Developers, who wield significant influence in constructing the online spaces that underpin businesses. Hence, a comprehensive understanding of the SEO basics for web developers outlined below is imperative for their role: Must-Know basic SEO practices for Web Developers As noted earlier, the role of web developers is immensely significant in shaping the virtual landscape and ensuing business success. This is primarily due to their responsibility for crafting and upkeeping the websites that businesses rely on. Leveraging effective SEO tools, web developers have the capability to design websites that achieve higher rankings and attract valuable leads for businesses. Below, you'll find a compilation of fundamental SEO practices that every web developer should be familiar with: Security The more secure a website, the better is its ranking. All search engines prioritize websites on their Search Engine Results Page (SERP) whether it is ever officially announced or not. As any SEO company in Lucknow or elsewhere will tell you, a secure website means a better experience for users i.e. more value. The more the amount of valuable experience in terms of knowledge, data security, and satisfying the search intent, the better the SERP ranking i.e. better returns on SEO investment. Write Reader-Friendly URLs Ready to increase your web pages’ click-through rate? Simply ensure that the URL for every page on your website is concise and relevant to the subject matter of the page. A good URL signals to the user what the webpage is about and if it is relevant to their search query. If the URL is relevant to their search query, both the click-through-rate as well as the SERP ranking would improve. Not only that, shorter URLs are considered user-friendly since they are so easy to share. Response Codes Response Codes are the web server’s ‘response’ to a request made by search engines and website visitors but many don’t know their relation to SEO. Most of these response codes are not visible to site visitors because the browsers work seamlessly to take the visitors to the right webpage, even when redirected and so. These play a huge role in the SEO because if not done correctly or if there is insufficient information on any Response Codes, say 404, for example, the bounce rate for the webpage would increase, leading to a decline in SERP ranking. Robots.txt The only way for any SEO strategy to work is if the website and webpages are getting indexed on the search engines, robots.txt allows you to do just that. It is extremely important that you take care of your robots.txt file to create amazing SEO value simply because it would allow the right pages to get indexed on search engines i.e. visible to people using them for search queries and also help you block the particular pages from the public eye that do not serve any value to visitors. Know Your Redirects The role of Redirects in the SEO basics for web developers is often overlooked because they are not a direct part of it. But think of it this way - you went to purchase a bottle of milk from a store yet you can’t find any at the place these are usually kept, you would obviously ask any employee there to guide you towards the milk bottles. What would you do if there are no clear instructions from the employee? You’re obviously going to run away from that place frustrated and never intending to return again. The same is the case with Redirects, if not done well, people and your SEO returns are going to go far away from your business. XML Sitemaps Web Developers are already aware of the importance of Sitemaps for structure but like any digital marketing company , Mumbai, Delhi, or elsewhere will tell you, it is also extremely important for the site’s SEO. XML sitemaps are simply the best way to ensure that search engines are aware of all the web pages a website has. When done correctly i.e. without redirects, rendering a 200 server code, free of 404 response codes, and more, these can boost the ranking of a website on SERP immensely. Mobile-Friendly Gone are the days of people just browsing the Internet on their laptops and PCs. Most internet users are now using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to browse the internet, get information and make purchase decisions. To have great SEO returns, it is paramount that any website operates smoothly on the big and the smaller screens of laptops as well as smartphones. You can easily ensure if a webpage is mobile-friendly by validating it through Google’s mobile-friendly tool. Website Performance and Speed How fast have you clicked out of a site that was taking too long to display a webpage? Most Internet users expect a fast response from a website to get answers to their query or they simply go to another website, and the more the bounce rate, the lesser the quality of your content is assumed by the search engines. Search Engines prioritize valuable content that satiates the search intent of the users. Thus, the more the bounce rate, the lower your website’s SERP ranking would be - leading to a drop in visitor’s rate due to a decline in visibility. Mind Your Site Heading Tags Heading Tags are one of the best ways for Search Engines to understand the content of your web pages, which allows for better SEO rankings when done correctly. These also make the web content more accessible and readable, which increases the user-friendly quotient of the web page. If your web page provides the most relevant content as per a search query, the better is its ranking and one of the ways search engines deduct the content’s relevancy is through heading tags. Make sure you’re always using relevant ones to reap the most benefits. Content Management and Dynamic Content As the name suggests, Dynamic Content is the type of web content that changes according to users’ behavior and preferences. This type of content increases the quality of the content that is delivered than static content. Search engines regard that as valuable content and allows for better SERP ranking and improve SEO. Conclusion These are some seo basics for web developers to always keep in mind. Not only would they initiate a better and more comprehensive design for the website, but also completely support the SEO strategy of the website. It is largely misunderstood that SEO is just marketing but it is much more than that, all parts of your website and how it is designed affects the SERP ranking and thus the SEO as well.