SEO & metadata · Web Dev 5

SEO & metadata

Google is smart, but only so smart

Google is smart about figuring out what content is good
And good at determining relevance

But with SEO we can give them a little help

Things that matters

Human-friendly text—with minimal, semantic code
Clear information hierarchy
First line of first paragraph
Links to your site from reputable sources
Clean, meaningful URLs & filenames
Metadata: enhanced semantics, rich information
Speed, security & responsiveness

Tags that matter

<title>
<meta name="description">
<h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc.
First line of the first <p>
<a>
<img alt="">
<strong>, <em>

HTML

<!-- The `<title>` tag is extremely important -->
<!-- The title must be unique for every single page -->

<!-- Homepage title pattern -->
<title>Site/Company Name · Small keyword rich, catchy phrase · City, Country</title>
<!-- Inside page title pattern -->
<title>Page Title · Site/Company Name</title>

<!-- The `<meta>` `description` is sometimes used -->
<!-- Unique for every single page — max 150 characters -->
<meta name="description" content="A short sentence describing the purpose and content of this individual page.">

<!-- Don’t use `<meta>` `keywords` — it’s completely ignored by all search engines -->

Other files

sitemap.xml — suggest what pages exist and their importance
robots.txt — used to block search engines — should exist even if blocking nothing
humans.txt — show who created the site, what tools where used, resources & references

Structured data

Have you ever asked Google a question and gotten an answer?

How far away is the moon?

Google can answer that because websites mark up their content so computers can understand

Schema.org

When you share something on Facebook or Twitter (et al.), the little preview is defined by specific tags