Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process used to increase the ranking and visibility of your website or web-pages on google or other search engines. SEO is a free process where you’re not going to pay search engines to increase the ranking of your website.

In this blog post we are going to learn the best coding practices, which can help us to attract our customers or organic traffic over the search engines (Google, MS Bing etc.) by increasing the ranking of websites whenever people search for us. Afterall, when your web page shows on the top of the search result there are high chances of the user to find you and click on your page.

Use Unique and Descriptive Title Tags

The title tag has an important role in the aspect of web page SEO. The title tag should be unique, concise and descriptive enough to perfectly reflect the content of the web page.

A well-crafted title tag is used by search engines to determine the subject of the page and to display it in the SERP also known as Search Engine Results Pages.

Sometimes Google can also modify the title displayed in the SERP if it finds that the provided title is not relevant to the user’s query or content of the web page.

I am providing an example of title tag so you can take the reference:

Proper Header Tags

Header tags help search engines to understand the content on your web page. It is important to use the header tags in the correct way.

Always use <H1> tag to provide the Title of the web page and should be on the top of the document.

<H2> and <H3> should be used for the sub-headings, try to use only one <H1> tag on a page so search engines could understand the main topic or context of the document and their subheadings and provide the relevant result to the user's query.

Meta Descriptions Tag

Meta description is basically the summary of your web page, it could appear in the search result along with the title of the web page

Always try to write a unique and concise meta description for different web pages. A strong meta description could boost the number of users who click on your web page because it encourages them to check it out.

Example:

Canonicalization for Duplicate Content

The canonical tag helps search engines to understand the preferred version of content in cases you’re having multiple URLs for similar or duplicate content. It helps to prevent the duplicate content showing in the search results.

For example, if you’re having the same content for different URLs like HTTPS, HTTP or non-WWW versions then you can indicate to the search engine about the preferred primary version by adding the canonical tag.

Example:

Clean and Descriptive URLs

Website URLs are the address which should be clean and descriptive and relevant to the content of your web page.

A clean URL reflects the content of your page and helps users understand the relevance of his query. The URLs should be easy to read, so if we are posting the URLs on social media or elsewhere it should reflect the content attached to it.

We should try to avoid the special characters, symbols or query parameters used in the URL because using them makes the URL look messy and hard to read and remember to the user.

A URL should be short and sweet, we can also use the SEO-friendly keywords to it so it also helps us to increase the visibility and ranking of the website.

Example:

Image Optimization: ALT Text

We can optimize the images that we are using in our website by providing a descriptive ALT tag to it.

As we use images on our web page as a part of our content, it is difficult for search engines to understand what the image is related to. So, by providing the ALT tag we are not only increasing the accessibility of images but also helping search engines to understand the relevance of the image.

An ALT tag should not be larger than a sentence, using the specific keywords to it helps increase the images visibility on search engine image results.

Example:

Schema Markup for Structured Data

Adding the schema markup into the webpage is a modern technique to provide the information about the context of the webpage.

This helps search engines like Google to display the rich snippet in search results. Search engines directly take the data from the schema markup which could help us to improve the ranking of our content.

We can prefer schema.org for the structure data or schema markup. Basically this is JSON-LD or Microdata which provides additional context and the structure information of our content to search engines.

Example:

Open Graph Tags for Enhanced Social Sharing

Open graph tags play a crucial role in optimizing your website for search engines. Whenever we are going to share the content or URL of a web page on social media platforms, Open Graph tags play a key role in controlling how your content appears.

These tags can specify the title, image and description and other properties of the content being shared on social media.

Example:

Mobile Responsiveness and Page Speed

You need to ensure that our website is mobile responsive and provides an excellent user experience.

Google always prefers the sites to display in the top search results which are mobile friendly. Additionally, you can optimize your website speed by using optimized images, removing unused code files and optimizing the code.

To improve the website’s speed, you can prefer Google PageSpeed Insights tool which provides valuable insights and recommendations for increasing the website’s Performance, Accessibility, SEO and Scope of Best practice.

Secure Website with HTTPS

A Secure website always comes higher in ranking in the search result and also builds the confidence of users to visit it. Try to secure your website with HTTPS so it not only protects the sensitive data but also builds trust.

In conclusion, adding these best SEO coding practices into your website is essential for increasing your website’s visibility and overall performance over the search engines. By Implementing these practices, you can build your way to higher ranking over search results and attract more organic traffic from the internet.