Demystifying SEO for Developers: A Practical Guide

Why SEO Matters for Devs

As a developer, your role in SEO is crucial. Technical SEO lays the foundation for all other SEO efforts. A well-structured, performant, and accessible website is more likely to rank well.

Core Web Vitals

Google's Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure user experience.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. Optimizing for these metrics is a developer's responsibility and directly impacts rankings.

Semantic HTML

Using semantic HTML tags like <header>, <nav>, <main>, and <footer> helps search engines understand the structure of your page. Always use <h1> for the main heading and structure your content logically with <h2>, <h3>, etc.

Meta Tags

The <title> and <meta name="description" ...> tags are vital. Ensure every page has a unique and descriptive title and meta description. Next.js makes this easy with its Metadata API.

import type { Metadata } from 'next'
 
export const metadata: Metadata = {
  title: 'My Page Title',
  description: 'This is a description of my page.',
}