As you probably already know, developing a website can present some challenges, especially if the owner requires a website that is overcomplicated. When developing a website there are a large variety of components you need to remember to ensure the site is properly functioning. With all these parts you have to remember, it is easy to forget about SEO.
You may be thinking that you are a web developer; you don’t need to be thinking about SEO. But actually, SEO is an important section of web development. There are two distinct segments to SEO; on page and off page.
As a web developer, you don’t need to worry about hiring an SEO company and focus on off page SEO; your efforts should be focused at on page SEO. This includes all the SEO tactics that can be implemented on an actual website. Lucky for you, most of the tactics for on page SEO are quick and easy to implement. Your client will be thanking you in the future when search engines give them a higher ranking!
Read on to find out the top 4 quick and easy web development tactics that can help to boost a website’s SEO:
Tip #1: Responsive Design
This probably isn’t news to you. It is required now that all website have a responsive design. However, what you may not know is that a responsive website will help boost SEO. By designing a responsive website, you also need to take into consideration the variations on both smartphones and tablets.
When a website works well on multiple devices this keeps both users and search engines happy. This will ensure that the website better engages with customers and search engines are most likely to give a better ranking which will improve visibility.
More and more people are using their phone to search and look on the internet. Therefore if you don’t design a responsive website for desktops, smartphones and tablets, the website just won’t have the ability to properly compete with others.
Tip #2: Improve Site Navigation
When designing a website it is important that you look to improve the navigation, this isn’t just for users looking to find something in particular, it is also for search engines. When you include a site map, or something similar, it means search engines can easily navigate and understand the website and therefore give a more accurate ranking.
As well as this, by ensuring an easy website navigation design, it improves usability. Going from one page to another should be made as intuitive as possible. This helps to enhance customer experience on the website and assists to improve the buying process.
If users find the website enjoyable and easy to navigate they are more likely to spend more time on the website and visit more pages. These are two important factors that search engines look for when ranking websites.
Tip #3: Use Keywords Properly
When developing a website it is important you understand the keywords the client is looking to target on each page. You are probably thinking that you are a web developer and you don’t need to worry about keywords. But keywords are extremely important and they need to be positioned in the correct places of a website.
As a web developer, it is probably not your job to produce the list of keywords to be implemented on the pages. However, it is your job to put these keywords in places of significance to show search engines what keyword is attached to each page.
Have a look below at a few of the most beneficial places to position keywords:
- Meta description
- Headings (H1, H2 & H3 tags)
- Title tag
- Alt text
- URL
- Internal links
- Navigation design
Tip #4: Compress Images
It won’t come as a shock to you that images are an integral part of a website. Images help to break up the text and bring life to a website. It is important to not go too overboard with images when developing a website. This is mainly because the file size of images is large and this will greatly impact website speed.
No one likes a slow website. These days, users are becoming more impatient and they are likely to leave (therefore increasing the bounce rate) if the website lacks the ability to load fast. If you want to check the speed of a website, Google has a free tool to assist you.
Instead of simply not including as many images, another option is to compress or change the image/ file size. This ensures that the website will still load fast and therefore keeping users happy (and this subsequently keeps search engines happy).
Final Thoughts
Web development and SEO do go hand in hand. When developing a website it is important to remember the basic on page SEO tactics that will help to improve the website’s SEO. This is something that always needs to be done but it shouldn’t take up too much of your time. There are only a few important on page SEO tactics you should be thinking about and they are all relatively quick and easy to implement.
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