8 Basic SEO Things Website Developers Need to Know

It’s undeniable that anyone who wants to boost their website’s ranking through SEO but lacks basic knowledge of web development may find it difficult to expect good results. As you know, SEO components today cover everything from content creation to improving website structure. Therefore, in any case, getting support from a web developer or having basic knowledge of web development has become an important foundation for SEO.

However, many web developers tend to focus on ensuring their websites function correctly rather than attracting visitors. If you’re a web developer and want to level up your web development skills in the direction of proper SEO, this article provides 8 basic pieces of SEO knowledge that every web developer should know. Guaranteed that after reading this, you can apply it to your work immediately.

1. Website Security

One of the key conditions or factors for successful SEO results is “website security.” If a website is hacked or infected with malware, it will directly affect the user experience. And of course, Google thinks about “how to best meet user needs.” Therefore, it’s no surprise that these websites will be evaluated and ranked as poor websites.

Therefore, don’t forget to check your website to ensure there are no vulnerabilities that could allow hackers or malware to easily attack it. A recommended solution is to install an SSL Certificate (Secure Socket Layer) to increase the credibility of your website and as a basic protection that should always be done first. Or using plugins that help enhance website security is also an interesting approach, but be careful about the impact on website speed as well.

2. Response Code

If you’re a beginner learning SEO, it’s probably not surprising that you don’t know HTTP Status Code. But if you consider yourself a web developer who wants to boost your website’s ranking to the first page but still looks confused about what HTTP Status Code is? You have to say that the opportunity to rank on the first page of your website may be less than half. Because HTTP Status Code is important in terms of recognizing what problems there are with the website pages in order to solve those problems. It’s a fundamental thing to know about SEO.

HTTP Status Code is divided into 5 main groups:

Each main group also has its own subcodes. One that is often encountered is 404 Not Found, which is a code indicating that the system cannot find this page, whether due to a domain change or deletion. The more 404 pages a website has, the more Google will view the website as not meeting user needs and affect the website’s ranking.

3. Making Redirects

Making redirects simply means setting up a website to automatically change pages when those pages are accessed. The system will then change the website page to another URL that has been set up.

Imagine that one day you need to change the domain name of your website, but you don’t want to lose all the SEO scores you’ve worked hard for. The technique commonly used is to make a 301 redirect, which is a method recommended by Google because it helps Google see that the new URL exists and the old URL is not a problem because it has been configured to come to the new website instead. All the SEO scores you’ve worked hard for won’t be wasted.

4. Making Sitemaps

Making Sitemaps, or a website sitemap, not only makes it friendly for users visiting the website but also allows Google Bots to collect data smoothly. By acting as a table of contents for a book, it allows anyone who wants to find something to find it in this sitemap. The recommendation is to always make sure that every page on the website that is created in the Sitemap has a 2xx Response Code, confirming that the webpage has no errors.

5. About URLs

Google has given recommendations for URL structure: “Keep the URL structure simple.” In other words, the URL structure of a website should be as simple as possible, considering organizing content so that URL creation is logical and has a characteristic that is easy for ordinary people to understand. If possible, use readable words instead of long number codes or simple words that convey meaning in themselves (You can read more recommendations from Google here).

6. Mobile Friendly

Who can resist holding a mobile phone for less than 8 hours? The answer is none, or if there are, they are probably a minority. And Google understands this very well. Therefore, it’s why Google had to change the algorithm from not caring about website display on other channels to now becoming a “Mobile First” policy, which has a great impact on websites that want to have a good ranking.

Actually, modern websites rarely encounter problems with displaying on mobile devices because many of the tools used to create websites have functions that support this. There are only websites that were created a long time ago that often encounter these problems. Therefore, if you want your website to have a good ranking, don’t forget to improve the display of your website on mobile devices.

7. Website Speed

Slow page loading for even a fraction of a second can cause most people to choose to close the website immediately, and of course, Google is the same. Website speed is an important factor that affects SEO ranking. Improving website speed can be done in many ways, but before starting to improve the website, you must first find out what is causing the website to be slow?

• Large image or video files can be corrected by trying to resize or compress the files or checking if the file format being used is too large.
• Too many plugins on the website. Anyone who creates a website on WordPress and has too many plugins is one of the causes that makes the website load up to tens of times slower. The solution is to try selecting only important plugins to reduce the download burden of the website.
• Technical issues such as website code. For websites written from scratch, whether it’s HTML, JavaScript, or others, you must be careful when writing code because even a small error can affect the website’s performance or stability. The solution is to regularly check for errors in any part of the website.

8. Heading Tags

Heading Tag, many people may not be familiar with this term, but if you say H1 or H2, many people might recognize it. Heading Tag is a tool used to define the topics of each webpage, specifying what is the main topic and what is the subtopic. There are from H1 to H6. The recommendation for using Heading Tag is:

• Use it to structure the webpage
• Use H1 for the main topic and only one per page
• Don’t forget to put Keywords in Heading Tag (appropriately)
• Heading Tag affects the display on Featured Snippet

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