Search Engine Optimization is something I was informed about but not something I dove into. But as I began deploying applications it's something I realized is very important to an application in production. Along the way, there were some key HTML tags that when optimized and used to their fullest drastically increase your web application visibility on search engines.
1. Title Tag
This one may seem pretty obvious but there is a ton of power in this first tag on our listen that we can optimize for better results. At a superficial level, this tag reflects the content of the article itself. Some key notes here is to keep it under 60 characters. Google like other search engines will cut off the end the moment you pass 60. Another important aspect is to remove conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns. They simply do nothing for your search this helps with keeping under 60 as well. Another quick tip is to use numbers where they make sense in your title tags. Many studies and experts have proven that when labeled correctly people tend to gravitate to hard dates and numbers in queries as they believe that is the first sign of a factual article. A nifty side effect is you can include the publishing year in the tag but leave it out of the post. So “ Top 5 SEO tags” can also be “ 10 SEO tags in 2020” giving you the chance to update the article without creating a new article from scratch and building upon your work instead.
2. Meta Tag
Meta Tags are your swiss army knife for SEO these generally accompany your title tag in any search engine. These tags normally are descriptors or a description of your content. Not much really needs to be said here other than try to sum of the most important aspects in one sentence that can be wrapped effectively as with Google and all search engines this is where you get your clicks if enough is explained clearly. One tidbit is to make sure you use the same keyword in the title as well as the meta description tag as this causes search engines to list your content more effectively.
3. Header Tag
Header tags have an interesting job as the responsibility here is not so much the content or the appearance but the clarity a well-used Header tag can give. They are used to break up the content and make it easier to read and follow along. On average roughly 55% of users skim your content in about 15 seconds. And the key aspect that yields maximum benefit is pacing and clarity and this is exactly what good header tag usage will do.
4. Alt Tag
This is the visual element of any application or article and generally what the majority of your audience will see. Because of this the importance of this tag can not be understated for a while search engines had no way of determining what images were trying to convey until alt tags. And alt tag tells your web browser what image to show for your content as well as what the picture is about to the search engine. Without these tags, your search engine has no means of comprehending the image contents which reduces image search exposure.
5. Links (href)
Our last tag is very important as links are the lifeblood for any web application. Having quality backlinks is important but so is having strong internal links connecting to external sites. Links overall lend to the credibility or help expand the support for your content through other media and sources. It's important to understand that your links internally or externally should focus on expanding your content or subject matter or offering another valid source corroborating it. Otherwise, you can run into search penalties that reduce your SEO and end up increasing the SEO of the page you linked to.
Final Notes
Keyword Tags used to be very important but with how Google scans content for quality and intent keywords are no longer a viable querying method. The search engine itself will now rank keywords that best convey your content and intent. But in today’s SEO, the majority of traffic is driven by readability and quality. Search engines in general will now scan the content to match keywords as needed based on what its found inside your article or web application.