| > I keep in mind when seeing these statements that the entire SEO industry is built around convincing people web developers shouldn't develop websites Can you point to an example of this? SEO doesn't matter at all for devs working on web applications like Salesforce or TurboTax; they are their own walled garden. For devs that work on the CMSs of "content" sites like NYT, Buzzfeed etc, the only technical recommendation an SEO would offer would be to: - adhere to principles of web accessibility - HTTPS site wide - implement caching, load assets via CDN, use srcset for images to improve site speed - use semantic HTML (<footer>, <article>, etc, not just <div id="footer">) - a logical URL structure (/articles/economy/us-gdp-Q4-2019) and information architecture These are things that most devs already know they should implement. The bulk of SEO work is organizing existing content so they perform better on search. This could mean rearranging the IA, consolidating content into a longer-form "guide" that can be backlinked on another site and evaluating if content is using the keywords that people search for. None of those tasks require developers, as the functionality is usually available as an option in the CMS. |