Not so long ago, web programmers programmed, web marketers
marketed, web writers wrote, and front-end designers designed. The roles were
pretty well defined with little crossover. That is, until driving web traffic from
multiple channels became such a force.
In this day of inbound marketing, anyone working the web
should have a big picture understanding of how their work contributes to SEO,
engagement, readability, and conversions. That means these workers just can’t live
in a vacuum and pump out their work assuming it’s effective. The entire team on
a website must understand how their individual contributions can help SEO, SERP,
engagement, etc.
Here's a list of some very basic understandings that
everyone on a web team should have:
- The ability to look at HTML and understand what is wrong. For example, alt tags missing or not properly describing the image
- Meta description not optimized for each page or not 150 - 160 characters
- Photos not optimized for the smallest file size
- Understanding the use of keywords to engage visitors and enhance SEO.
- Understanding of how to chunk content and the proper use of white space
- Load time: understand what changes on a page can decrease page load time.
- Understand the semantic web and what this means to web accessibility and search engines
- Recognize that code needs to be minimized whenever possible
