SEO Tips to become good Web Developers & Designers

The following are the simple tips that all designers and developers can easily implement on their project.

Don’t Duplicate Content

Google wants to provide its users better services in form of valuable and unique content. Google just penalize website that contain duplicate content. Duplicate content make it difficult for search engine which website should rank at higher and which at lower using the same content. So, do avoid content duplicity and make sure no one can copy your content and benefit there site.

Use Keywords Appropriately

Most of website developers stuff their pages with keywords. Always use keywords intelligently and in proper context. One thing to keep in mind? Search engine engineers are not stupid and they will see through these tricks. Instead of mindlessly using keywords, use them appropriately. More specifically, in:

    Page Titles
    Headers (i.e. – h1, h2, h3)
    Links

Write Clean Code
Search engines like to see nice mark-up. It allows them to more easily read what is on a site and its pages. Thus, make appropriate use of tags and eliminate any and all code bloat. Some suggestions along these lines include:

    Use only one h1 tag and all other header tags appropriately
    Ensure your code is semantically correct
    Eliminate any bad or broken links
    Make your page load times as small as possible
    Load your Javscript and CSS externally

Write Proper Page Titles

Keep your page title to 60 characters or less. Most search engines won’t display anything more than this anyway. Also, be sure that the title includes a short, accurate summary of the page content followed by the website’s name.

Construct Proper Links

Always attempt to accurately define what someone will get when they click on a link. For example, “Download Our SEO Book” or “Review Our Human Resources Guidelines” are much better than links than “Click Here” or “Download”. This is good for both the user experience and for search engines, as they index and pay particular attention to the links a page contains.

Use HTML Text

With modern browsers finally jumping on the “typography bandwagon”, we can use custom fonts when and where they are needed. So, take advantage of this technology by using as much live HTML text as possible. This helps eliminate what was previously only possibly via Flash or images and allows for search engines to index these elements.

Use Google’s Tools

Google provides us with a ton of great tools we can use for SEO optimization. Be sure to make use of there:

    Google Analytics (tracking your visitors)
    Google Webmaster Tools (Learn about and research your keywords and pages)
    Google AdWords Keyword Planner (actually part of Google’s Webmaster Tools, but important enough to single out)

URL Structures

Simply put:
www.example.com/?p=10 : is a Bad link structure
www.example.com/mypage : is a Good link structure

All page names within your site should be human-readable. If you are a WordPress developer, this is as simple as setting up the proper permalink structure in the WordPress admin panel. Regardless, search engines do take notice of these names and proper naming can help them index your content more easily.

ALT Tags vs. Meta Tags

Keep the ALT tags, but lose the meta tags. Ensure all images have a good ALT tag applied to them so that search engines can recognize them when indexing. For example, if you have an image of the Harry Poter, name it “Harry Poter”. Or, at least something that properly describes the image. Don’t just use “graphic” or – worst yet – nothing at all!

As for meta tags, almost all have gone “the way of the dodo bird” so to speak. The exception to this is the “description” meta tag, which many search engines use to describe your site on their results listings.

Google First

Always optimize for Google first. Right now – and for the foreseeable future – they are king. If you are limited on time and/or budget, take care of your Google SEO efforts first and save the other search engines for later.

Don’t ignore site speed

Loading speed for any site matters a lot, it can be considered as one of the main factors which can either increase the number of visitors to your site or decrease them. Fast sites are crawled faster by search engine as a result; there are high chances for your site to rank at high position. You can use webpagetest.org to check your site speed and you can also compare with your competitors easily.