SEO optimisation by programmers
SEO optimisation of a website or an online store is a number of actions that have an impact on natural positioning in Google web browser. Usually, SEO is associated with creating content for natural positioning. You can write a text on your own or use the help of a copywriter. It’s crucial for texts to be unique and contain the proper number of key words and phrases connected with your offer. For example our key phrases are ‘IT outsourcing’, ‘e-commerce’, ‘creating web and mobile applications’. Apart from these there are many factors that decide about the successful ranking of your website in Google search engine. Part of them is technical and should be verified from the stage of creating the project. Below we have described the most decisive ones.
1. Easy navigation on the website
While choosing the design of the website, more and more people are looking not only at visual aspects but also if the content of the website is clear and comprehensible. It’s a very good approach, because apart from attractive design, the next thing the user will pay attention to is speed and ease of choosing specific information. Indexing robots behave in a similar way. They prefer websites which are easy to navigate. To provide users and robots simple access to information about your company and its offer, take care of proper linking and directions. Add the most important pages to the main menu. You can link additional content for instance in the buttons. The most substantial websites can be linked in the dedicated sections at the home page. What facilitates the navigation of users and robots on the website are also breadcrumbs - they inform us what path we followed to reach the particular website.
2. Appropriate structure and amount of the content
The developer of your website will help you establish proper structure of sections, headlines and texts. Your task is to create content to fill them. While preparing texts for the home page write briefly and namely. Beside robots your websites will be visited in majority by potential customers that you want to encourage to read about your offer, not scare off with the wall of the text. You can place the longer descriptions of your offer in dedicated subpages. If your offer isn’t very extensive and you don’t want to create additional tabs, you can write SEO articles as blog posts. They don’t have to be published on your website, if you think that they don’t contain valuable information for customers. Website developers will for sure advise you which option would be the best for you and will help you to prepare the best SEO posts structure.
3. Responsiveness
Adjusting websites to mobile and desktop devices of various screen sizes is a standard nowadays. If the content of your website is cut, there’s a huge chance that the user will assess it as unprofessional and will quickly leave the website. Robots also verify if the website is responsive. If they see deficiencies in the mobile version of the website, they won’t be willing to direct users there.
4. Description of graphics
Graphics and photos on your website catch the attention of users and make your website more attractive to look at. Unfortunately indexing robots cannot see them. However, they can read them - this is why we should add alt descriptions to graphics. This is a short information about what is in the picture. Thanks to this description, graphics are more robot-friendly. It’s also a facilitation for people who because of having bad eyesight use the function of reading the websites.
5. Sitemap
Sitemap is a text document that contains information about all of the pages within your website. The sitemap informs indexing robots on which pages they should look at. The sitemap helps in indexing websites and is especially important, when not all of the tabs are linked on the website.
6. Friendly urls
This term can be used for links that have a readable and logical string of signs. They often contain information about a parent category or a tab. The link should clearly inform where the user is right now. Random strings of names and numbers won’t be perceived as friendly both for users and Googlebots. A simple form of the link it’s also easier to memorise and presents better when we add the link in the email to a customer or in our social media.
7. Canonical url
This is a very substantial technical aspect of SEO. If you have on your website a few subpages with similar texts, it’s good to inform indexing robots which of these websites should be verified by them. The website marked as canonical url will have the largest contribution in indexing. There are a few ways to mark a website as canonical, for example by adding the tag or headline in the code. Remember that non-canonical websites shouldn’t be placed on the sitemap that was mentioned in point no. 5.
8. Hreflangs
Hreflang is an attribute that states language versions that your website has. On the basis of this attribute, the search engine recognises to which languages your website has been translated and can match the best language for users according to their location. The hreflang attribute is also useful when we have similar language versions, for example separate English versions for the United Kingdom and the USA. Thanks to this we can avoid marking pages with similar content as duplicates.
9. Robot.txt file
This is the file dedicated for indexing robots, which serves as a guide for your website. The file shows the path that Googlebots can follow. It can also contain the list of pages that shouldn't be visited by robots and considered in indexing. For instance they’re pages such as the cart, term and conditions, privacy policy, registration page, etc.
10. Metadata
Metadata includes meta title and meta description. This is nothing else like the title and short information about what we can find on the subpage. Apart from the fact that the metadata are verified by indexing robots, they’re also meaningful for users. Given title and description displays in search results. Therefore, metadata apart from key phrases should contain a brief description inviting users to your website.
11. SSL encryption
SSL encryption is symbolised with a padlock that is next to the domain name. This sign confirms that the website is safe and we can browse it without any doubts. However, sometimes we enter the website and see that the connection is ‘not private’. This means that the data sent while browsing the website are not secured and can fall into wrong hands. Such information effectively discourages users from filling the form or purchasing products. Also Google admitted that because of users’ security, they prefer websites having SSL certificates. This fact may not have a direct impact on positioning in Google search engine, but for sure will affect the traffic on your website.
