DEV Community

Cover image for A Primer on SEO

A Primer on SEO

Laurie on June 03, 2019

Last week I polled the twitterverse about their knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). // Detect dark theme var iframe = document....
Collapse
 
rekomat profile image
René Keller

Thanks for your article, Laurie!

I think I didn't get the point about canonical_url. As you say, this post appears on two sites (tenmilesquare.com, the "origin" I guess and dev.to). Shouldn't the canonical_url of the post appearing on dev.to point to tenmilesquare.com?

Collapse
 
laurieontech profile image
Laurie

Ya, about that. It was meant to. I published there first. And then forgot to add it into the front matter here before I published 🙃. Only just realized yesterday. But my technology consultant post is done that way if you want an example!

Collapse
 
sinewalker profile image
Mike Lockhart

Ah right. Yeah this page has:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://dev.to/laurieontech/a-primer-on-seo-49n1" />

And I was thinking "Oh noes! Did the DEV editor put that in and overwrite her canonical link? How will I do this?". But, the DEV.to/laurieontech/technology-consultant post has this in its header:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://tenmilesquare.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-technology-consultant/" />

Which is what we should probably all do, for our cross-posts on DEV.to, to link them back to the original on our own site.

So, I guess the question now is: when I cross-post to DEV.to (and I have a few that I'd like to), how do I set the canonical URL back to my original blog post?

Turns out: it's super easy: you press that "WRITE A POST" button in the top right corner there, and paste your Markdown. Then you press the ellipsis button (...) on the editor's top-right corner, and there's a field "Canonical URL" for you to put in your original URL!

Collapse
 
rekomat profile image
René Keller

Ah great, thanks for your answer! Just had a look at your technology consultant post. And I'm de-confused! =)

Thread Thread
 
laurieontech profile image
Laurie

Oh good!

Collapse
 
garrett profile image
Garrett / G66

I’m an SEO professional working on transitioning to developer career and I can say this primer is right on the money. Thanks for writing it up for the devs who need it!

Collapse
 
laurieontech profile image
Laurie

So glad to hear it! And best of luck with the transition. I'm sure you're gonna kill it.

Collapse
 
vuaseo profile image
vuaseo

Great thanks for sharing your SEO.
You can check the website vuaseo.net/ to see if it needs to be optimized.
Thank you very much

Collapse
 
abragred profile image
abragred

Even though I don't do the SEO for my business myself, I love reading articles like this, just to know what's going on in the field. I used to never be interested in this and left everything in the hands of a sketchy SEO company. Big mistake on my part. I paid a fair amount of money for absolutely nothing to happen. It wasn't until I reached out to some other SEO professionals that I learned the root of the problem and needless to say I was gone from that company. I've now been collaborating with firstpagedigital.sg/seo/ for the past couple of months and it's the first time I actually see the effects of SEO, which damn, are pretty impressive.

Collapse
 
bthrustsg profile image
bthrustsg

Seo in Singapore is one of the top SEO firms in Singapore. We are proud to be recommended as a top SEO agency by many satisfied customers. SEO services include link building, keyword research, web page optimisation, and PPC campaigns with precise targeting. We provide an integrated service that goes beyond traditional SEO practices. for more information please visit our website :

Collapse
 
leadingagency profile image
Leading.vn - #1 Digital Marketing & SEO Agency Vietnam

Thanks for your article, Laurie!

Yes, there are a lot of factors for rank a website on google but If your site is engaging and users spend good time on your site then your site will be rank at the top position.
SEO is getting complicated or harder nowadays because of competition google focusing on quality content and user engagement.
voice Search Optimization: In 2021, people became more advance they will do voice search instead of text so optimized your site for voice search.
Infographic submission: or image submission will be booming in 2021 because people love infographic post. It saves time of people.
Website Speed: It is a very important thing when it comes to user engagement. Make sure your website load faster because your user will get not dropped. Slow Website loading speed increases your bounce rate & exit rate and this is not good for SEO
Mobile-Friendly Website: Everyone has a smartphone and people used to search anything from their mobile devices, so optimized your site mobile friendly you will get a lot of traffic from it. You can check speed on my website leading.vn/seo/.
Video content: Some people love videos instead of text, so make short videos of your content and upload them to your blogs it will increase your traffic and engagement ratio.
Yes, there are a lot of factors for rank a website on google but If your site is engaging and users spend good time on your site then your site will be rank at the top position.

Collapse
 
claudiobernasconi profile image
Claudio Bernasconi

Thanks for sharing this advice. I am currently optimizing my blog, and I do not know where to start. It seems like a great idea to use canonical_urls on all my dev.to posts, which I already have set up. I'd love to read more from you about the topic. Again, thanks for sharing.

Collapse
 
ryboflavin42 profile image
Ry

The canonical url is a more advanced technique, but if you syndicate your blog (post it in multiple places) it’s important so your site doesn’t get dinged.
On page SEO is pretty simple and there are millions of articles on this.
The two key things to look at is Keywords (what people actually search for) and back links. Who links to you site/pages.

Collapse
 
scottmathson profile image
Scott Mathson • Edited

Google Webmasters just released this, too. Could be helpful: A video series on SEO myths for web developers -webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/06/...

Collapse
 
ongcongnghiep profile image
Ống Công Nghiệp

Thank Laurie,
Your article is a useful document for me in the process of optimizing my website. I'm not a coding expert so I don't understand Canonical_url very well. Can you check it in the web ongcongnghiep.com.vn/? Thank you very much.

Collapse
 
alexalex0 profile image
AlexAlex0

Very informative, thanks

Collapse
 
yilmazer profile image
Yılmaz

Thanks for useful information about canonical url @laurieontech

Collapse
 
terabytetiger profile image
Tyler V. (he/him)

That update timing though 👀

Great post - It was really great to have everything in a single location for once and not scattered across 16 different tabs.

Collapse
 
ryboflavin42 profile image
Ry

Great post Laurie.
The hardest thing is knowing where to start and this is a great place to start.

Collapse
 
laurieontech profile image
Laurie

Haha hey Ryan 😊

Collapse
 
anurella profile image
Anurella

thank you for the post and what SEO do you use like Yoast and the lot?

Collapse
 
w3care profile image
W3care Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Another Google core update May 2020

Collapse
 
alimammiya profile image
Alimam Miya

Deep Learn What is SEO?

Collapse
 
vuaseo profile image
vuaseo

very great. Thanks for sharing your seo techniques.
Can you help me get a backlink for this article vuaseo.net/mua-backlink/

Collapse
 
takeshi_sawaki profile image
Takeshi Sawaki

Thank you for your article!

If you need SEO support in Japanese, please let me know.
codigital.co.jp/en