Many businesses focus on SEO when they need a major boost in their lead generation strategy and want to grow their ROI. However, all of the different algorithms that search engines roll out are making it more difficult to pull off a perfect approach to SEO.
So besides following the typical on-page SEO tips such as keyword optimization and off-page SEO practices like link building, you need to ensure your website is built to rank right from the start.
In this article, we will discuss the concept of SEO programming and how to use it on your website.
What Is SEO Programming?
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SEO programming is simply the process of coding your website to make it easier to rank on search engines. It involves implementing some code-related optimizations such as creating and optimizing HTML tags, minimizing clusters of Javascript codes, inserting schema markup, and developing a mobile-first responsive website.
The purpose of SEO programming is to create a website that is easily found, understood, and indexed by search engines. A perfect illustration of this is the use of proper HTML tags to guide Google bots to crawl your website content and index it for visibility.
4 Best Practices For SEO Programming
There are a few things to keep in mind when coding for your website:
- Coding For Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is one of the top requirements for calculating a website’s rank on search engines. This is backed up by a claim from Google that stated that mobile-friendliness, which is a result of responsiveness, is now a major ranking signal.
Coding for mobile responsiveness means creating a website that is easily accessible on mobile devices without lagging or breaking, regardless of the screen. Additionally, a mobile-friendly website should be scalable on all non-desktop screens and display the same valued information across various devices.
When building a mobile-responsive website, you need to take the following into consideration:
- Breakpoints
Breakpoints refer to the points where a mobile-responsive website makes some changes in order to adapt to a particular screen. Let’s say you want your website to be responsive on devices like the iPhone 13. That means you need to set a breakpoint for it with the CSS media query shown below:
/* 2340×1080 pixels at 476ppi */
@media only screen
and (device-width: 375px)
and (device-height: 812px)
and (-webkit-device-pixel-ratio: 3) { }
Different screen sizes have different breakpoints, so make sure you include a wide range of media queries when developing your website to ensure maximum responsiveness on all mobile device types.
- Grid Layout
Grids are mainly used to scale website content, depending on the object device. Two common types of grids you should have in mind are fixed grids and fluid grids.
A fixed grid is just as it sounds. The rows and columns do not permit extensive adaptation to the device screen. This type of grid style was mainly used back in the days of primitive websites with fewer aesthetic elements.
On the flip side, a fluid grid allows your website content to adjust like a fluid within a container and automatically take the shape of the mobile screen. It also provides an effective alternative to traditional fixed grids.
- Design
Design features often involve the typography used, color mixes, gradients, aesthetic elements, and icons. The type of design you implement on a desktop-only layout might not necessarily work for mobile devices.
For example, some font styles look really good on larger screens, while on smaller screens, they are barely readable or scannable. So you need to make sure your design for mobile devices is well-optimized.
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- Website Speed Optimization
Speed is another factor to consider when coding for your website. If the website is already up and functioning, run a website audit with a tool like SE Ranking to see what factors could affect your website’s loading speed. The SE Ranking tool also evaluates your website’s technical health, detects other technical issues that can negatively affect your SEO, and provides tips for fixing those issues.
Excessive page and header requests, the absence of a keep-alive protocol, large files, terrible coding architecture, and synchronous loading can also influence the website speed. For example, too many header requests, often resulting from large amounts of scripts, place a heavy load on the server and increase loading time.
Some technical aspects of website optimization that can prompt the rewriting of your website code include poor design and terrible architecture. In most cases, you might need to declutter your scripts or place them in the proper location.
Another crucial issue is failed indexing. Robot tags like <meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex”> mean Google should not index your page, while <meta name=”googlebot” content=”index”> means your website should be indexed and shown in search results.
Other terms like “Disallow” attributes determine how search engine bots handle your website for crawling and indexing. So you need to be careful not to mix up the terms and take your pages offline. In most cases, you might need to add a disallow tag for pages that are not needed and unnecessarily increase the crawling budget for search engines.
- Fixing In Schema Markup
Schema markup is a vocabulary of structured data that is used to tell search engines what your website content truly means and how it should be interpreted. While schema markup technically does not directly influence your SEO, it can increase your pages’ CTR and engagement.
A good example of schema markup is depicted in the image below:
The image highlights the list of events documented on the website even before you click to open the page. This is an event type of markup, and it is much more helpful than the usual meta-description, which provides little value to web surfers.
Other markup types include article markup, video, podcast, and FAQ markups. To integrate structured data on your website, you can either write the code from scratch or make use of Google’s structured data helper tool and follow the steps mentioned there.
Make sure your markup code is properly tested and functioning and not just a dummy code.
Conclusion: SEO Programming
A few years back, businesses and marketers were solely concerned with rolling out a website, with little regard for aesthetic value. But now, you need to keep SEO in mind and build web pages that are scalable, crawlable, and can be indexed.
Implement coding practices like breakpoints, fluid grid layouts, and friendly designs for mobile responsiveness. Don’t forget to markup your content and assign the appropriate value so that search engines can present your website’s data better. Lastly, carry out a website audit to see what factors affect your loading speed and visibility.
