SEO for Developers: Technical Optimization

For a developer, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not about marketing keywords, but about code quality and structure. It ensures that search engine bots (crawlers) can easily understand and index your website.

1. Semantic HTML

Search engines rely on HTML tags to understand content structure. Use tags that describe the meaning of the content.

Hierarchy matters: Use <h1> for the main title (only one per page), and <h2>~<h6> for subsections.
Structure: Use <header>, <nav>, <main>, <article>, and <footer> instead of generic <div> tags.

2. Meta Tags & Open Graph

Meta tags in the <head> section provide metadata about your site to search engines and social media platforms.

<head>
    <title>Page Title | Brand Name</title>
    <meta name="description" content="A brief summary of the page content for search results.">

    <meta property="og:title" content="Page Title">
    <meta property="og:image" content="preview.jpg">
</head>

3. Performance (Core Web Vitals)

Google penalizes slow websites. Performance is a key ranking factor.

Image Optimization: Use modern formats like WebP and define width and height attributes to prevent layout shifts.
Minification: Minify CSS and JavaScript files to reduce load times.

4. Crawlability

You need to guide the bots on how to crawl your site.

robots.txt: A text file that tells crawlers which pages to access and which to ignore (e.g., admin panels).
sitemap.xml: An XML file that lists all the URLs on your website, acting as a map for search engines.
Canonical Tags: Used to prevent "duplicate content" issues by telling Google which version of a page is the original.
- <link rel="canonical" href="https://mysite.com/page">

Summary: Developer's SEO Checklist