How important do you feel knowledge of code is to your SEO efforts?

17 replies
  • SEO
  • |
We all know there are many different hats when it comes to the online world, and some people like to wear more than one.

HTML is obviously the one essential for SEO.

How do you feel like your SEO efforts could be improved if you were skilled in CSS, and/or programming languages such as PHP and Javascript?

Alternatively, if you are skilled in these languages how do you feel it's helped you personally in your ability to rank web sites?
#code #efforts #feel #important #knowledge #seo
  • Profile picture of the author minimo
    Knowing Javascript definitely wouldn't help as SEs can't crawl the majority of that content.

    I think the basic HTMLs e.g. using the right tags, bold fonts, etc. and knowledge of 301 redirects and canonical URLs are the major skills needed?
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  • Profile picture of the author aliridho790
    If I had the skills, I can make a great blog. And, it probably will make my visitors feel comfortable.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    I have a decent amount of html knowledge and it helps me a lot whenever I'm optimising my site. If you know some html, creating posts and optimising them for search engines would be way easier than if you didn't.

    Also, designing your site intuitively will be easier as well, and you know that a great design contributes to the UX of a site, which in turn helps it rank higher.
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  • Profile picture of the author BobyRurka
    I highly recommend to learn basic html.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Originally Posted by twilightofidols View Post

    We all know there are many different hats when it comes to the online world, and some people like to wear more than one.

    HTML is obviously the one essential for SEO.

    How do you feel like your SEO efforts could be improved if you were skilled in CSS, and/or programming languages such as PHP and Javascript?

    Alternatively, if you are skilled in these languages how do you feel it's helped you personally in your ability to rank web sites?
    I don't think it would matter much, though some technical experience is required when you depend on a CMS and other people's themes as they make tons of mistakes that can mess up your site quite big.

    When I grab a random WP theme that I like I often spend a few hours tweaking it so that it doesn't contain any stuff that might work against me, so a little bit of experience in PHP is required yes. I can't code a thing in php but I can definitely modify code to make it suitable for SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    An SEO not knowing HTML is like an adult riding a bicycle with training wheels.

    That's A Nice Bike Boy, Is That A Huffy? - Reese Bobby, Talladega Nights
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  • Profile picture of the author Jayski32
    Greatly. Really wish I was stronger in PHP. I am heavily reliant on programmers and my seo buddies who are programmers. It really sucks because its important to automate in this business.
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  • I think people should rather concentrate on learning their niche to become an authroity, any sort of coding can be outsourced, its not something needed every day so i'd put it on the bottom of my list
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by high_plains_drifter View Post

      I think people should rather concentrate on learning their niche to become an authroity, any sort of coding can be outsourced, its not something needed every day so i'd put it on the bottom of my list
      I couldn't imagine doing SEO like that, I don't even know how it would be possible.

      What would you do keep your web/dev on the phone asking If links are followed, research your competitions sites (beyond visual), etc...?

      That's a rough way to do business.

      Google isn't visual when it comes to ranking pages, Google looks at source code. Example, I can show traffic two webpages that look the same but both can be coded totally different (ex: javascript vs HTML).
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by high_plains_drifter View Post

      I think people should rather concentrate on learning their niche to become an authroity, any sort of coding can be outsourced, its not something needed every day so i'd put it on the bottom of my list

      Keywords in title
      H1 tags
      placing anchor text
      Navigation

      just to name a few. If you can't do those then you can't do SEO.

      HOWEVER

      I have had clients where they were not letting anyone touch their site besides their developers but even then you should know to tell the coders what and where they need to change.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jackie0433
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Keywords in title
        H1 tags
        placing anchor text
        Navigation

        just to name a few. If you can't do those then you can't do SEO.

        HOWEVER

        I have had clients where they were not letting anyone touch their site besides their developers but even then you should know to tell the coders what and where they need to change.
        Exactly, you do need some knowledge instead of being completely clueless.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    I have no idea how anyone could possibly work as an SEO without a pretty thorough understanding of HTML.
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Well, fortunately.. I took 2 programming classes at my university. One for programming javascript & html and the second class was just more advanced. Problem is that was like 7-8 years ago, I didn't really get into SEO/websites till 3 years ago, so I forgot about 80% of what I learned.

    And it makes me a bit sad because that second class was one of the most difficult classes I've ever taken in my life. I remember finals when we had to code a fairly complex program and the only reason I passed that class is cause I sat next to a girl who knew exactly what she was doing. In fact, I would have failed that final if I didn't have a peripheral view of her screen. And all the mistakes I was making were the smallest things. Like if you put 1 semi colon in the wrong place, your entire program won't work. Put a space in the wrong place, again, it won't work. So thanks to that girl I passed the class lol.

    What's really crazy, forgive me for sounding like such a nerd. But if you sit down next to an experienced programmer, and watch them do their thing, it is literally like watching a magic trick. My brother is an engineer for At&t and has 20 years experience programming C, C++, PHP, Java & Java Script.

    When he sits down to code, he types faster than I can write. And it's amazing some of the shit I've seen him build over the years.

    The problem is, he's way too experienced to learn anything from. The minute he starts speaking in code my brain freezes up.

    So I've made it a mission to learn visual basic and css on my own. I hear VB6 apps are suppose to be much faster than C++. And css I just need to learn for web design. That way I can stop paying random strangers on fiver to go into sites that I make 80% of my income from. And I can start building some apps on my own rather than pay my developer (who is becoming very very expensive as of late lol).

    -RS
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post


      So I've made it a mission to learn visual basic and css on my own. I hear VB6 apps are suppose to be much faster than C++. And css I just need to learn for web design. That way I can stop paying random strangers on fiver to go into sites that I make 80% of my income from. And I can start building some apps on my own rather than pay my developer (who is becoming very very expensive as of late lol).
      -RS

      VB6 is kid of outdated. Go with VB.net but then again you might as well go with C# if you are going .net because you will find far more examples and training for that. However if you are talking web mostly then hands down Python and Ruby (brush off the javascript because its everywhere now and a must for the web.)

      All that you were talking about spaces and semi colon endings - Python doesn't care. I could not make head or tails of C# until I started with Python and Ruby. Much simpler and they kind of help act like interpreters for C#.

      The day I hang up my SEO shoes it will be to program. Hopefully another year and I' be mostly programming (right now a SEO app)
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        VB6 is kid of outdated. Go with VB.net but then again you might as well go with C# if you are going .net because you will find far more examples and training for that. However if you are talking web mostly then hands down Python and Ruby (brush off the javascript because its everywhere now and a must for the web.)

        All that you were talking about spaces and semi colon endings - Python doesn't care. I could not make head or tails of C# until I started with Python and Ruby. Much simpler and they kind of help act like interpreters for C#.

        The day I hang up my SEO shoes it will be to program. Hopefully another year and I' be mostly programming (right now a SEO app)
        Download dotPeek .net decompiler (free), that will let you browse the source code of .net .exe files.

        The code is C# but you can copy/paste that code over to an online .net code converter for free. The code converters aren't always perfect but they're usually ok, only convert small chunks of code at a time as needed.

        It helps to see how other people code things once you get the basics down.

        Personally I like vb.net because that's what I started out on back when .net was first released in 2003. I paid something like $150 for vb.net 2003, a few months later Microsoft started making vb.net free. I'm still running vb.net 2010, I should upgrade, I'm just too lazy...
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  • Profile picture of the author Hamza SMaRtGUy
    I recommend to have knowledge of multiple langauges, because the internet world is not only limited to HTML and PHP. There are several things out there that are making handful of things in the Internet market.

    Personally, I have knowledge of HTML, PHP, Cold Fusion and several other programming languages. The knowldege of these languages let me take unique view on my competitors. It allows me to come up with more healthy solutions than they are using it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jackie0433
    I have a pretty decent amount of knowledge in all of those, but these things you can learn online for FREE! Just use Google and it'll take you where you need to go. It helps to know those languages, or pay someone to do it for you, which is what I refuse to do.
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