A good SEO becomes a great one with an increased ability to keep ahead of the competition with coding knowledge. To be a successful SEO, you don’t necessarily need to know how to code. Although having coding abilities is not a need for SEO proficiency, having more talents always makes one more efficient. Here are some methods that a decent SEO might become even better with the aid of comprehending code.
HTML Coding Standards and SEO Go Together
An SEO who is conversant with HTML is aware of the effects of bad coding techniques and knows how web content should be constructed. The HTML elements, which are to a webpage what a foundation, door, floor, and roof are to a house, are a crucial construction block.
If HTML components are used improperly, search engines might not be able to properly crawl a website.
The official HTML specifications place restrictions on what HTML elements can be used in the section (the placement of metadata that only browsers and bots can see) (the document itself that users see).
However, if you place elements (like or) inside the area where the information should be, search engines will start displaying the webpage from the typically concealed area, causing the metadata to be indexed as part of the content itself. It indicates that Google won’t index that webpage in the manner in which it should be indexed.
When a Facebook pixel code is placed incorrectly in the head> part of a webpage, that error may occur. The 400 error response message is another illustration of how poor coding skills affects SEO. Some SEOs mistakenly believe that a 400 error code is a bad thing because they immediately assume that it has to be corrected when they read the term “error,” especially when it appears in Google Search Console as an error.
Structured Data
Structured data is a markup language, hence some rules dictate how the code should be expressed.
There are several alternative ways to describe Schema.org structured data, but JSON-LD structured data, which Google prefers, is probably the most straightforward to comprehend, making it simpler to troubleshoot.
Like HTML, JSON-LD is produced according to rules, and it has a layered structure where the subject of the structured data (called a Type) is followed by its attributes (called a Property).
Regardless of whether you are familiar with HTML or another markup language, understanding JSON-LD structured data is simple. It is impossible to exaggerate the advantages of knowing how to write organized data.
For many of the highly sought-after rich results positions at the top of Google’s search engine results pages, properly structured data markup is necessary (a.k.a. SERPs).
A webpage with improperly structured data markup won’t be eligible for rich results.
To determine whether the JSON-LD structured data is accurate and suitable for a rich result, one can rely on Google’s structured data markup checker.
However, just because the tool declares the code to be valid does not automatically entitle it to rich results. To correct the structured data and make rich findings a possibility, the ability to evaluate JSON-LD is put to use in this situation.
Communicate Better With Clients
Knowing how to code makes it possible to make an explanation clearer so that a customer who does not know how to code can comprehend the cause of a given issue and its resolution.
What one does not understand cannot be explained.
For instance, being able to code structured data gives the SEO the ability to explain not just that it is acceptable to integrate structured data but also the advantages of doing so and how to accomplish it.
Knowing how to code enables one to explain that a client may avoid installing a bulky plugin to accomplish the same task by adding a few lines of code to the child theme functions.php file of their WordPress website.
A person who codes and is familiar with PHP can recognize when it’s preferable to utilize a plugin over a coding solution and then explain it to the customer. This is in addition to the fact that an SEO without coding abilities wouldn’t even be aware of the functions.php file solution.
Knowing how to code gives you the ability to examine the HTML code and pinpoint the reasons why the site isn’t being properly indexed or isn’t working well.
I previously performed an audit of an e-commerce website that had a bespoke template and (poorly) displayed an insane amount of coding incompetence. Simply resolving those errors on the entire site allowed the information to be correctly indexed.
.htaccess Knowledge is Power
Although I find. htaccess to be a challenging language to master, I find it to be rather simple to utilize.
One can usually get along well by just understanding the advantages of .htaccess, what it may be used for, and how to add it to a file. For instance, you can use a plugin to update specific sites that have moved from HTTP to HTTPS, redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, and repair incorrect URLs.
However, all of that is possible using the .htaccess file.
Learning about .htaccess might help one comprehend how to enhance a website without turning to another plugin. You can also use a .htaccess file to stop other websites from linking to your photos and other media files (hotlinking). By banning the IP address ranges of malicious bots that routinely access a website, .htaccess files can even be used to prevent rogue bots from duplicating your material.
Since adding tens of thousands to millions of IP addresses to a database will significantly slow down your site, doing something similar with a.htaccess file is far superior to using a plugin or mod that adds the IP addresses to a database.
Diagnose Hidden Problems
Coding issues are typically hidden from view within the HTML code. The faults will be compounded across all pages that share the templated structure because the majority of websites employ templates. Although using an HTML validator is simple to learn, comprehending HTML is necessary for deciphering the findings.
Coding mistakes, such as leaving off a closing bracket (>), can be apparent and evident. It could also be subtly done, such as using a smart quote instead of the usual straight quotation mark (” “), which is a non-standard character in the code. This issue frequently happens when someone copies code from a piece of software that automatically inserts smart quotes.
The curly quotes problem can significantly impair a webpage’s indexing and parsing.