Web developers have a large hand to play in the creation of search engine optimized pages. The largest search engine provider – Google – takes web development factors into account when indexing and ranking pages. Google uses an automated crawling bot to index new sites. It is important to work with the limitations of this automated system when aiming to create a site that ranks highly and satisfies your client’s need for exposure. Here are some vital SEO tips and SEO tools for developers, with an emphasis on tips that help sites rank well with Google.
What Can Google See?
Google’s ranking algorithms do not ‘see’ a website in the same way as a browser when they ‘crawl’ its content. Googlebot is Google’s web crawling bot that indexes new sites and influences how they are ranked. It is unable to view some images embedded using JavaScript. It may not see how your website is centered around animation or understand how it is formatted. Work with what Googlebot can make sense of to improve your chances of being ranked highly on search results.
Mobile Compatibility
Every good developer and SEO agency professional is well aware of the significant impact that mobile compatibility can have on search engine ranking in 2022. Over half of the world’s online browsing is completed using a form of mobile device, according to statistics collated by Statista. Google takes this into account when ranking pages. It is important that websites are developed from the ground up to be mobile-compatible and fully scalable. Mobile-compatible sites need to be relatively simplistic and feature minimal ‘wall of text’ type pages. They need to be usable on even the smallest screens.
Account for JavaScript Limitations
As this article has briefly mentioned earlier, Google is slightly limited in the way it can assess web features created for JavaScript. Google absolutely can crawl most JavaScript features. However, it does have trouble using them to indicate indexing and can also not make sense of certain image and video embeds.
JavaScript SEO matters. It is important to write code that Google can easily categorize and rank. Incorporate meaningful HTTP source codes so that Googlebot can successfully crawl and index the page according to the quality of its build. Avoid soft 404 errors, as these could negatively impact the search engine ranking of the page.
Submit Sitemaps
Google can only rank what it can ‘crawl’ using automated mapping algorithms. It is, however, possible to regularly update Google by submitting sitemaps yourself. Google only automatically collects a sitemap the first time it ‘crawls’ a web page. To ensure that Google quickly notices changes, you should submit your latest sitemap using the tools Google provides. The search engine giant only accepts standard types of sitemap formats.
It is important to regularly send in new maps as your site becomes more optimized. They will enable your – or your client’s – site to rise the rankings more swiftly. Remember: the more Google knows about a site, the more effectively it can rank it.
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