One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is reviewing the code that forms a webpage. Clean code can be crawled easily by search engine bots and also serves to organize information for the DOM in the browser to understand. If you are looking for a way to improve your SEO, consider these HTML-centric tips.
1. CanonicalURL tags
Canonical URL tags are meant to manage duplicate content. The tags consolidate link "equity" across multiple URLs with the same content. So they are designed to tell search engines to treat two pages as the same. This is typically the case between a URL (www.mysite.com) and the first page, which is usually called an index (www.mysite.com/index.html)
A canonical tag looks like this:
The canonical tag is typically added in the head of a webpage.
2. Server side code showing on client-code This is a low priority as a technical problem, but its appearance can be a point about programming style, allowing others to view code
3. Matching source code to screen view - some designers hide keywords within a website. Not only is this pointless, it is considered a black hat technique. Black hat is the use of extreme SEO techniques which are considered as a negative by search engine. Make sure that no keywords are invisible in the body elements of a webpage.
4. Improper analytics tags. Analytic page tags are pretty straight-forward to add. But in instances it may be worthwhile to check that - can inhibit page loading. WASP, created by Stephane Hamel, offers an way to verify tag functionality.
5. Clarify Adult-child relationship among page links - The links that describe a page should not show up as a weird tag that distorts the page URL. Such a change becomes a challenge for an analytics report to distinguish one page from another.
6. Authorship. Authorship is Google's protocol for relating an author's content to a main website on which the author significant contributes. Its importance has arisen thanks in part to sharing content. Content marketing has created a strong need to link articles to original sources. Google in particular has begun incorporating content back into its search engine algorithm, while Bing can display Facebook results, valuable if Facebook followers are sharing content.
To add authorship, insert a tag like the following:
Then go to your Google Plus page and add your site as a contributor.
7. Nofollow - Search engines consider the No Follow elements as a link to not be include in a search query result. The value of this link is to prevent search engines from including certain pages or sites that may not be as relevant to a search
To implement, add a tag at your link so that your link appears similar to code below:
A business can learn a few steps to implement some of the coding concerns. Here's a few ideas to keep in mind as they move forward.
Understanding some code basics will explain what's right, what's questionable, and what really needs changing. These factors can shape your digital budget in making effective decisions.
"Search engines are evolving to give a set of answers" - Mark Zuckerberg, TechCrunch Disrupt
