SEO for Web Developers

<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for website visibility. As a web developer, you can implement technical SEO practices to help websites rank higher on search engines.</p>

<h3>1. Semantic HTML</h3>
<p>Use proper HTML5 elements to improve readability and accessibility:</p>
<ul>
  <li><code>&lt;header&gt;, &lt;footer&gt;, &lt;main&gt;, &lt;article&gt;, &lt;section&gt;</code></li>
  <li>Use <code>&lt;h1&gt; - &lt;h6&gt;</code> tags hierarchically</li>
  <li>Use <code>&lt;alt&gt;</code> attributes for images</li>
</ul>

<h3>2. Meta Tags</h3>
<pre><code>&lt;head&gt;

<title>My Web Page</title> <meta name="description" content="Learn SEO best practices for web developers." /> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow" /> </head></code></pre>

<h3>3. URL Structure</h3>
<ul>
  <li>Use readable, keyword-rich URLs: <code>/blog/nextjs-tutorial</code></li>
  <li>Avoid query strings for main content pages</li>
  <li>Use hyphens to separate words</li>
</ul>

<h3>4. Sitemap & Robots.txt</h3>
<p>Help search engines crawl your site:</p>
<pre><code>/robots.txt

User-agent: * Allow: /

/sitemap.xml</code></pre>

<h3>5. Page Performance</h3>
<p>Fast loading improves SEO:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Minify CSS, JS, HTML</li>
  <li>Use lazy loading for images</li>
  <li>Enable caching & compression</li>
</ul>

<h3>6. Mobile-Friendly Design</h3>
<p>Use responsive design and test using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.</p>

<h3>7. Structured Data (Schema.org)</h3>
<pre><code>&lt;script type="application/ld+json"&gt;

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "headline": "SEO for Web Developers", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sahasransu Satpathy" }, "datePublished": "2025-09-01" } </script></code></pre>

<h3>8. Canonical URLs</h3>
<p>Prevent duplicate content issues:</p>
<pre><code>&lt;link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/blog/seo-for-web-developers" /&gt;</code></pre>

<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>By implementing these SEO best practices, web developers can improve website ranking, increase organic traffic, and enhance user experience.</p>