
What Every Programmer Should Know About SEO - kateroth
http://katemats.com/2012/03/04/what-every-programmer-should-know-about-seo/
======
toumhi
Good article, I wanted to write something about it too(web developer with
strong interest in SEO here). I'd say in the end it's more an introduction to
SEO than it is advice for programmers about SEO. I'll detail 2 things she
overlooked in my opinion.

For example, web developers have a fantastic opportunity to build links by
getting involved in open source communities. These are extremely link-rich
environments and by posting tutorials or creating small packages, you can find
yourself with a lot of links pointing to your site. They will maybe not be
relevant to your target keywords but will still be links from high-authority
sources.

And I'd say the traditional way of garnering links still applies to web
developers: get to know fellow developers, get interviewed on their blogs,
exchange resources etc. So hang out where your community lives, whether it's
on Reddit, StackOverflow, Hacker News etc. Get to know people, the SEO will
follow.

~~~
jiggy2011
This only works if your site has something to do with development.

Or are you suggesting posting development related topics to a non development
related site purely to get those juicy backlinks (and thus good pagerank)?

~~~
toumhi
No, not only. You can host software packages and tutorials on your product
website.

For example, patio11 of HN fame has an article about Rails SEO Tips on his
product website <http://www.bingocardcreator.com/articles/rails-seo-tips.htm>

Even though I'd say that he could have done a better job at integrating it on
his website (it looks too much like an isolated page in my opinion - there
should be a "Tips for developers" section), it does the job at attracting
links and boosting SEO for his main site (also with A/Bingo, a software
package he developed: <http://www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo>).

Actually he developed a blueprint of what could be done for startups regarding
SEO: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/>

And here you go, he got three more links for free :-)

-

~~~
jiggy2011
That's sort of what I mean. For my work I build and run a number of websites
which are almost completely unrelated to tech. These are service industry
websites so there is no "product" to speak of.

I am looking for ways to improve pagerank, so let's say I was to write a few
pages about how I built some of the trickier parts of these websites and
hosted these on the websites themselves but perhaps did not link these through
from the main pages (but did link back to the main pages from my new pages).

If I got links to my articles on reddit , HN etc then perhaps this would
improve pagerank even though the pages are unrelated to the sites main
content. So this would improve the search rankings for the websites on their
main keywords as well?

~~~
toumhi
Yeah, that's the idea. However personnally I would link from the home page
("Inside the business" chronicles). It doesn't have to be a big link, could be
in the footer for example. I don't have metrics for that but I think pages
that are not linked from anywhere on your website might look a bit shady in
Google's eyes.

By getting links to your articles you'd improve overall authority of your site
(also important to link back to your homepage and other important pages in
order to drive PR back, as you point out).

By improving your website's authority you'll rank better for your main
keywords as well.

------
programminggeek
Ok, you really don't need to know everything about SEO to do a non-terrible
job of ranking. Do these things and you can get traffic with SEO.

1\. Title tags that get clicks (not kw stuffing or plain exact match)

2\. Write content that is unique and semi-frequent. (update once a week or so
at least)

3\. Acquire links.

#1 and #2 are the basics that you need to do to even have a shot to show up
for a given query. #3 is what is going to get you on the first page.

You can do #3 by having great content and doing social promotion, using email
newsletters to blast your content out to people so they can share it, or if
you're in a boring industry and nobody likes you, you can buy or build links
via the numerous link building services out there that can hit any number of
link sources.

At the end of the day, natural links are viewed as better, but paid links can
get the job done in some cases.

Given a certain bar of content quality, the quantity and volume of links is
still the most important ranking factor on Google and Bing as far as I can
tell.

------
shadowmint
I despise SEO, but oddly enough I actually agree with what the article says.

Possibly this is more for web-programmers than others, but these days that's
quite a lot of people, and what the article says is succinct and to the point.

What you have to realize is that SEO is a logarithmic curve; when you've done
none, doing a little bit makes a huge difference. When you've already got a
decent site, well... a lot of effort for virtually no gain.

~~~
Maxious
Everything except "Building Links" I would call UX/Accessibility if only to
avoid any semblance of the shadier parts of SEO.

------
nhebb
" _Typical link building [...] can be through deals, partnerships, PR pitches,
link exchanges – even paying for links._ "

A few of these techniques - link exchanges and buying links - sound like
really bad advice, especially given that she is a former SEOmoz employee. She
also omits the most straightforward way for startups to get backlinks =>
create content on your site worth linking to.

~~~
sopooneo
I've found that people hate to hear that when asking for advice on how to get
traffic. It's even less popular than "eat right and exercise" as weight loss
advice.

~~~
dspillett
A lot of people take a more directly cynical view of content creation, rather
than the more passive ignorance we have with regard to health. Our health is
not something someone else can take generally, content is.

It is too easy to look at the rampant copying and dirty tricks used to pull in
viewers for ad revenue and think "if you can't beat them, join them" or worse
"I might be able to beat them, but joining them seems easier".

------
benkant
s/programmer/web developer

And even then it's a stretch.

~~~
Tharkun
Not sure why the author seems to assume that every programmer is even remotely
involved in webby stuff.

------
yaix
Site freshness only matters for certain categories/topics. For other topics
you could say the older the static content the better. Some of my best
ranking/money making pages have not changed in 8 years and rank better every
year, without doing anything.

Regarding ranking algos, you did not mention the Trust Rank (there is a patent
G filed some years ago). A low Trust Rank is equally bad as a low Page Rank. I
don't really know much about it, but afaik it has to do with the trust that G
has collected on your _site_ , while Page Rank is based on individual pages.
If you link to "bad neigborhoods" (another important term, think casino sites,
v*agra, etc.) your TR will go down for example, and its hard to get it back
up. If National Geographic links to one of your pages, your site's TR goes way
up.

And then there is the number of pages on your site. Google will only crwal a
limited amount of pages from your site, depending on your Page Rank and
distribution of incoming links. So try to keep the number of crawlable pages
focused to the relevant pages (ie the ones you'd like to see in G's index).

After some time and if you have tons of links, you will see a "deep crawl"
with a bunch of Gbots hammerings you server and downloading many more pages a
day than usual.

------
franze
PLEASE DO NOT READ THAT ARTICLE - it is bad for you and your business.

SEO is a bullshit industry. this means that 80% of everything that is written
about SEO actually reduces your knowledge of SEO, that article is in no way
different.

just pick a few examples:

    
    
        > A web crawler has to crawl your site (and every other site on the web)
       > Indexes all the pages ..
       > Organizes the indexed collection and stores ...
    

this one misses on of the most important steps of the google site processing
pipe: Discovery is the process of discovering URLs to crawl. It is fueled by
the sitemap.xml and crawling.

PageRank - is not - "another important part of authority" - pagerank is
thoughtcancer. don't ever say that word, don't ever think that word. see my TC
article here [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/07/startups-linking-to-your-
co...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/07/startups-linking-to-your-competition-
will-help-you-no-really/)

    
    
        >Ensure pages render without JavaScript enabled
    

sadly google parses and to some degree renders JS ... badly. this tip is good,
but leads to the false conclusion that google does not parse/render/"see" JS.

    
    
        > you should also pay attention to how you construct links and anchor text to internal pages on your site.
    

internal link anchor text is mostly irrelevant.

    
    
        >your own internal links use relevant keywords in the anchor text.
    

it's also some of the worst things, as the impact in minimal to not
measurable.

    
    
        >So if you load a bunch of text dynamically with Ajax, or JavaScript, create a non-JavaScript version that will show the same information.
    

outdated, google now even does onload-triggered POST requests if necessary. js
is still bad, but the story above is only half the story.

    
    
        >Put them in the URL (and even better if your domain name has your keywords)
    

oh god, not again. these are the SEO URL rules

    
    
        #### landingpage url rules
    
        all URLs on an a webproperty must be according to these rules
        listed in priority!
    
        1. unique (1 URL == 1 resource, 1 resource == 1 URL)
        2. permanent (they do not change, no dependencies)
        3. manageable (1 logic per site section, no complicated exceptions)
        4. easily scalable logic
        5. short
        6. with a targeted keyword phrase
    

further down she says something about 404s and it sounds like they are bad.
404 are great. when pages are gone, they are gone - 404 or 410. if the move
then 301. but do not redirect gone pages to friendly 200 pages. keep your site
simple and your redirects rules as well.

    
    
        >Additionally you want as many links to contain appropriate alt text.
    

links don't have alt text, images have alt text. in an image is linked, that
alt text substitutes the anchor text.

    
    
        >But SEO isn’t just about building a great site that is crawlable and has the right content – it is also about converting users.
    

no, that is the job of the product, onpage marketing, conversion optimization.
SEO is really just about getting - targeted - visitors. (she has clearly read
too much SEOmoz)

    
    
        >the most defensible SEO strategy is links,
    

no, it's not. that is just something that SEO agencies tell you to sell you
their services and useless tools.

disclaimer: i work as an SEO - i hate SEOs. my biggest success is 62 M
visitors a month. i don't read SEO blogs.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
You just took five minutes of my time telling me how bad something was and not
one second offering an alternative. For all the bad things your critique
basically just boiled down to "not it's not" without offering proof or links.

Do you see something wrong with this picture? As a reader all I've got from
your comment is angry guy doesn't like SEO and thinks all SEO blogging is for
shit.

I apologize for being so blunt, but this is not a very useful comment. Perhaps
the goal here is to establish how much you know, but even then it really fails
to convince the reader. It'd been great if it had been a bit more
constructive. Obviously you believe you know what you're talking about.

~~~
toumhi
I second that. Pointing out what a good SEO strategy is and how it opposes the
points described in the article would have been helpful.

If somebody interested in improving their SEO skills should not read well-
known SEO blogs then what does the OP suggest?

I personally follow SEOMOz and a few established SEO and link building blogs,
but would be interested in hearing other suggestions.

~~~
franze
i'm telling you the same thing i told the CEO of an international publishing
house: read a book instead!

Search Engine Marketing Incorporated

[http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Marketing-Inc-
Companys/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Marketing-Inc-
Companys/dp/0136068685/ref=dp_ob_title_bk) [not an affiliate link]

sadly, nobody ever does.

~~~
paulhauggis
You're telling us to read a 4 year old book on technology that changes on a
monthly basis?

Lots of SEO involves guess work. Google changes its algorithm constantly.

That's the reason nobody reads books on SEO. It's the same for web
development.

~~~
franze
>You're telling us to read a 4 year old book

yes

>Lots of SEO involves guess work.

no

everything is measurable, if you can't measure it, don't do it.

>on technology that changes on a monthly basis?

if you don't have a model of how SEO works, you can not improve on this model,
even with new information. that books provides a - sustainable, working,
applicable, employable - model.

>That's the reason nobody reads books on SEO. It's the same for web
development.

... (words fail me)

------
joeblau
The article is very good. I actually coded a project where my entire goal was
to reach number one on google for the search term "male female translation."
It took about a month but I eventually made it to the top following most of
what was mentioned in the article. I just had to figure it all out via
research, trial and error.

~~~
newman314
Honestly, I would expect any experienced web dev to have this knowledge as
part of what they bring to the table, especially for a front end dev.

The article is not really stating anything new and there is already any number
of similar articles out there basically documenting the same thing. In fact,
given her past job experience as VP Eng for SEOmoz, I'm a little surprised at
how little insight there is in the post. (Honest opinion, not trying to be
snarky).

------
sixQuarks
Getting links is still the most important part of SEO. She barely mentions
this.

~~~
simonw
It's also the part that is least relevant to the developers who are actually
building sites, which is who this article is targeted at.

