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Web Dev

Introduction To SEO

What do you need to make your website show up on search engines?

SEO Introduction

There are multiple factors that come into play to make your website show up on search engines such as Google.
The most basic requirements are:

  • Make sure you website is accessible and online under the domain of your choice
  • You have added your page to the Google Search Console

With the previous points completed your website should be able to show up when you specifically look for it, although it might take a few days or weeks.

Improving SEO

How to make your website show up more? Your website competes with every other webpage out there to show up on the first ranks for each listing. Optimizing your website to show up on the web is called “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO). To make your website rank higher the following points are relevant:

  • Page quality. The overall quality of your page. Is relevant information provided? Is the site optimized for mobile and desktop view? Is the navigation easy? How fast is it?
  • Page Speed. How fast does your website load? Faster websites are preferred. If the website takes too long to load the user will leave before seeing any of the content. Google tracks how much time users spend on a webpage, if a user leaves in less than a few seconds that’s a sign of a bad website which should then get ranked lower.
  • Keywords. Are you using the right keywords for your targeted user? Include the keywords you are targeting in the title, the first h1 element, the description, the image alt attribute and in the links that refer to the page from the outside.
  • Lighthouse test. Inside each browser you can see open the developer view by pressing f12, there you find the lighthouse test. Does your website score well on all of them? Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO should all be at a 100. Performance will be below 100 but don’t let it dip too far down. Compress large images, remove unnecessary JavaScript, minimize CSS, remove unnecessary bottlenecks to performance.
  • Head Area: Meta Tags & Co. At the top of each webpage you define various meta elements such as the title, the favicon, the description and much more. See more in What belongs in the <head> 🧠. Included in here is also information regarding the Open Graph Protocol.
  • Semantic HTML. Are you using the correct HTML elements? Are you using the HTML element correctly? Semantic HTML conveys the meaning of information. Check your website with the W3C Markup Validation Service. For example, the first header element should always be a <h1> which then has <h2> elements below it, there should never be any jumps from <h1> to <h3>. Are elements represented correctly with <main>, <section>, <footer>, <aside> etc elements?
  • Structured Data. Structured data is another format to give meaning to certain information. By using structured data you can provide rich results, like date or recipe information which can then get displayed even outside of your webpage. Like how when you Google for the release date of a movie you can instantly see that information without having to open a webpage. Schema.org is the main resource for information on structured data, but Google’s introduction to data structured data is easier to understand.
  • Backlinks. How does Google know your site is trustworthy? One main factor is backlinks. Backlinks are links that point to your page. The more your website is referenced and linked to in other trustworthy sites the higher the trust score of your website becomes.