Is your SEO executive tired of poor search engine rankings in spite of doing his job well? Don’t worry, Google core updates are not the only reason. Especially if you have been using fair SEO practices and high-quality content.
Did you know that Front-End optimization, which includes proper keyword distribution, high-quality content, backlinking, internal linking, loading time optimization, site map, canonicalization, and robot.txt submissions, and phew… all these go futile if the Backend of your website is not right!
Choosing an experienced web development company is highly important because SEO-friendly backends are the most underrated aspect in digital marketing and web development.
However, even the backend developers need to understand that a website is the primary tool for marketing a business digitally, and it must be crawlable, findable, and easily visible to the Search Engines first.
But, no worries! We’re breaking this myth today, and here is how you can get enough of all your search engine optimization techniques by structuring the backend well. Let’s take a deeper dive-
Table of Contents
Understanding Backend & Front-End Development
For beginners who have limited knowledge of web development, let’s explain the backend and front-end first!
Like every coin has two aspects, a website (and also a mobile app) has two aspects, namely-
Backend
- The part which is not visible to a website user is called the backend.
- Backend of a website or application is the coding and programming part that a user never sees.
- The backend is like the skeleton in the human body that gives the outer appearance its shape and structure.
Front-End
- The front-end is the skin of the human body, which is visible to the end-users.
- Simply put, the overall content, like the text, images, interactive CTA buttons, the logos, and colours that a user sees and interacts with, is called the front-end.
- Usually, most of the SEO techniques take place at the front-end, but they aren’t enough.
SEO & Its Relation to the Backend
If the backend of a website or application is not well-structured and not optimised enough, believe it, your efforts in-
- Content optimization
- Keyword Distribution
- Creating backlinks
- Optimising page load time
- And everything you are doing as part of the SEO
are going futile! Front End is meant for the end-users, but it is the backend is the force that ‘explains’ to the search engines what the website content is all about!
The Crux
📌Just like we communicate in English, a backend developer communicates with servers, browsers, and search engines — instructing them how to behave and convincing them that our content is valuable to users. It’s about teaching these systems to function in a specific, SEO-friendly way.
Backend SEO Optimization Tips That Always Work
Now you have all the foundational knowledge about how the Backend affects SEO of a web solution. So, let’s take a closer look at the role of backend in SEO-friendliness-
#1 The Backend Architecture Has The Primary Role
First of all, the backend architecture is the most crucial part of a website. The more well-defined the backend architecture, the more it is understandable by the crawlers.
When the crawler understands the website structure well, it is more likely to show it the relevant audience. Therefore, a backend developer must practice the following-
🔧 Organise content in categories
🔧 Implement clear page hierarchies
🔧 Necessarily, creating an XML sitemap that informs the search engines about all the pages of a website and what to index and what not to index.
🔧 Make Breadcrumbing a habit, not in relationships but in web development 🫠
🔧 Creating Breadcrumbs improves website navigation and makes it user-friendly.
🚀Pro Tip
A backend developer must work under the guidance of a UI UX designer, and a UI UX designer must work in close collaboration with the content developer and SEO executives. This will streamline the overall development by letting all the teams know the end goals, content strategies, and design expectations.
#2 Coding It Clean
For creating a well-structured backend architecture, writing clean code is the next step for the backend developer.
Suppose, conversing with a non-English speaker who ‘tries’ to explain to you something in English that flies above your head.
That is exactly what happens if the backend developer is not adept in the programming languages you are supposed to use.
Therefore, choose experienced web developers who have enough practice in writing code.
Keep in mind that the backend developers must optimise the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript well and make all the code ‘readable’ enough for the servers and search engines.
#3 Optimising the Server Configurations
When a website visitor visits a website, they enter a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) on a browser and hit enter. This way, he lands on a website page he wants to see.
Do you know how it happens? There are two protagonists in this story- the browser and the server. Suppose both are story characters. Browser is the friend of the Server, a supercomputer that has all the data available on the internet.
Server is responsible for giving the browser the information you are looking for. Then, the browser gives you the information.
Have you ever noticed that it hardly takes more than half a second to search for anything on Google? Also, if you enter a website URL, it ideally takes less than a second to get you the website. However, the process is actually as long as explained above.
A backend developer is responsible for a speedy data rendering from the server by configuring the servers and hosting environment in an optimised way. To achieve this, the backend developer must focus on 2C’s-
📌Caching
The backend developer must let the browser cache, that is, store static content of the website, such as images and CSS files. This technique helps a browser display information faster and reduces the loading time.
📌Compression
Additionally, taking the GZip technique in use for compressing heavy HTTP content is another useful practice that can increase the website speed and make it more SEO friendly.
#4 Handling the URL Structuring Right
Imagine having an incomplete or misleading address in your hand and searching for a destination! This is exactly what happens when the URL address is poorly structured.
A backend developer is highly responsible for URL structuring. The base structure for different pages of the website is defined by the backend developer.
Remember, often a net surfer prefers to ‘Google’ the information you are looking for with relevant keywords. A keyword must not be part of web page content alone; rather, the URL also needs to be optimised for the keyword.
🚀Pro Tip
Breadcrumbing can be really helpful in defining URL structures. And the content developers can be helpful in defining the breadcrumbs since they know the website’s content flow. Check out the example below-
❌ yourdomain.ae/service/android.app?development465
☑️ yourdomain.ae/services/android-app-development
Avoid numbers, question marks, and gibberish letters in a URL. On the contrary, utilise lower case, hyphens, and the main keywords. Maintain navigational structure in the URL as well. For example-
❌ yourdomain.ae/android-app-development
☑️ yourdomain.ae/services/android-app-development
#5 Keeping the Browser Updated With Accurate Status Codes
A backend developer is also responsible for taking care of the ‘code’ that a website sends to the browser to inform it about the ‘status’ of the page. Consider the following:
HTTPS 200 OK
Informs the browser and server that everything is ok with the page.
HTTPS 301 Permanently Moved
Informs that the requested page has been moved to another address permanently.
HTTPS 401 Unauthorised
Informs the browser and the server that the person requesting a page is not authorised to view it. Say, for example, when someone tries to log in to your Instagram account without a password.
HTTPS 403 Forbidden
Informs the browser and the server that the person requesting a page is totally banned from viewing the content. Say, for example, you are trying to access an American website with a URL, but your location has been banned by the Firewall.
Accurate status codes improve the SEO to a great extent by minimising the number of broken links. If a website spoils user experience due to silly mistakes that can happen in the absence of rthe ight status codes, soon it will go down in the rankings.
#6 Speed Is Front-End Developer’s Responsibility is the Biggest Myth
Overall, page speed might be the responsibility of the front-end developers, however, the overall website speed depends upon how well a backend developer optimises all the elements.
The backend logic, coding practices, and the efficiency of server configuration decide how fast the browser will fetch data from the server. So, for the load time, backend development plays a more important role.
Remember, page speed directly affects the SERP rankings. Especially, in the case of Google, user-friendly websites that load much faster capture the attention of Google better.
Therefore, always make sure that you choose an experienced and highly skilled backend web development team for fast-loading websites. Otherwise, your SEO activities might go futile.
#7 Strong & Scalable Backend for Handling Heavy Load
The server and hosting also have a crucial role in the loading speed. If a highly functional and heavy website is hosted by a single server, the loading might take time.
It is best to bring microservices into practice and host different functions of a website on different servers. Each function, like product/service listing & search, online payment, order tracking etc., can be developed independent of each other.
The backend developer can host them on different servers. This way, data processing becomes easier for the server and load time decreases.
#7 Making the Website Credible Enough for Search Engines
A website’s credibility matters a lot to the search engines. No search engine wants its users to land on a malicious website that can trick them and challenge cybersecurity.
Secure Sockets Layer certification that is SSL is the responsibility of the backend developer. If your website domain is Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https), search engines find it ‘secure’ enough to show to the users.
However, if your domain is only Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http), then your website rankings might be in trouble. Simply put, your domain must be
Did you ever think that the backend of your website can play such a vital role in your SERP ranking? Amazed, right?
But How Can I Know That My Website’s Backend is Not SEO-Friendly?
We’re pretty sure that this question will come to many of our readers. This question is quite valid. So, let’s figure out when to check the backend-
5 Signs That Your Backend Needs Optimization & Cool SEO Tips to Mend It
#1 When great SEO practices stop working, and you see only negligible growth in the ranking.
#2 Secondly, take help of Google Search Console’s data and look for crawl errors and slow crawl stats. Poor crawling data is a clear indication of complex backend architecture or missing backend elements.
#3 Test the load speed with tools like Google Page Speed Insights, GTmetrix, SpeedVitals, KeyCDN, etc. Focus on the Time to First Byte (TTFB) metric. A high TTFB indicates slow server loading. TTFB must ideally be less than 0.8 seconds.
#4 Check for the page source using the ‘Inspect’ option. If the page source is missing, the Backend developer is responsible. Page source is important to make Google SERP believe that the website is not shady.
#5 Look for the SSL certification. If your domain is not secure, your SEO practices will go in vain.
Even while choosing a digital marketing agency for SEO and content marketing, make sure that rather than selling a ‘plan’, the agency first runs a website audit for you and offers suggestions.
The right digital marketing team always checks a website before selling a plan. If you are choosing right, they will share all the above metrics with you. They will tell you transparently what issues your website is facing.
Let’s Leave You With
The key takeaway from this blog is that front-end developers and SEO executives are not the only ones responsible for your website rankings. If the backend developer has not done the job right, your SEO efforts will have no effect.
Therefore, always choose only the qualified, experienced, and skilled web developers who know the art and science of building well-defined backend architecture.
Even better is team collaboration. Promote transparent and open communication between the SEO, Content Development, UI UX Design, Front End Development & Backend Development teams.
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