10 SEO Tips For Developers

If you're a web developer with very little SEO experience and have been asked to make your site/pages SEO friendly, then you either asked for more detailed specs or went straight to Google to find out how.   Below is a quick list of common sense SEO tips for developers new to the concept.

First of all, SEO is an ever-evolving field.   A list of tips/tricks today might be outdated and even funny a couple of years from now.   The tips below should stand up to the next few years of search engine evolution.   This list is NOT exhaustive, just some fundamental suggestions for technical or on-page SEO.

1. Remember that there is no secret magic trick to SEO!
   A long time ago, you could easily trick the search engine to thinking your page was more valuable than it really was...but that time died away.   Even if a magic trick did exist right now, it wouldn't last very long.   Learn what Black Hat SEO is, and avoid being guilty of it if you want long term results. 
2. Always build for users, not for machines.
   Search engines are getting smarter by the day.  They are even starting to take user behavior into account and will likely continue doing so more & more over time.   If a real person finds the site useful, then the search engine will also.   I know this is a very general tip, but it's an important philosophy to adopt.
   
3. Remember that a web page is a living thing. 
   Do NOT delete or change the location of a page without using a 301 redirect!  Your pages build value over time, especially if there are back-links pointing to it.  A 301 redirect will tell the search engines that your content has moved permanently. 
4. Use text, not numbers in your URIs.
   If you're serving up content dynamically, don't create URIs like this: file.php?id=3.    Learn how to use ModRewrite and use text in the URI so that the page look more like a distinct file instead of some dispatch file with parameters.  Doing this gives you another opportunity to reinforce the context of your content.
5. Include meta keywords and meta description.
   Even though meta keywords and descriptions aren't really used by Google anymore, some smaller search engines still rely on them.   It's always a good idea to have both on all your pages when possible.  
6. Keep your directory structure simple and consistent.
   Your directory names should provide context clues.  For example, www.site.fake/content/basket-ball.php is not as useful (for humans & search engines) as www.site.fake/sports/basket-ball.php.  This isn't absolutely crucial, but if you have the freedom and control to implement it, do so.
   
7. Make sure pages are well interlinked.
   Interlinking your pages is very important.  You need to keep it balanced though.  You definitely don't want to link from every page to every page.   Here are a two good rules of thumb for interlinking
   
   • link to pages that are similar in context
   • when possible, place the links inside of the text content of the page.  This helps reinforce the context
8. Avoid using tables for layout. 
   It's OK to use tables for tabulated data, but you should always use CSS for layout.   There are many reasons for this, some related to SEO and many related to overall efficiency and good design practice.  Some example SEO benefits are:
   
   • the search engine has to digest less markup. 
   • it's easier to keep your important content high up in the source code.
9. Keep body content as high up in the source code as possible.
   I'm not sure this is as important as it used to be, but it does help to emphasize the important content if you keep it high in the source code.  At one point in time the search engines had a limit to the number of lines it would read on a page.  I would imagine that this was due to technical resource limits.   If that was the case, I'd imagine these limits have practically disappeared.
   
10. Create a sensible sitemap.
    
    • Don't stuff your sitemap page with 100+ non-contextual links. 
    • Use your sitemap to reinforce your content structure.  
    • If you have a heirarchial structure, show it here.  
    • If you have categories, don't list every article/page under each category.  Just list the most recent or most important.  If your linking to your category page and it links to your articles, then that's probably sufficient.

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