Digital marketing is a constant competition that can be called a major battle. For your business to survive and win, you need a cool “outfit”. Your weapon is your knowledge. And the field of technical SEO is no exception. A lot of people consider coding not needed to work with Search Engine Optimization. But experts say otherwise. Let's see why coding skills are not excessive in SEO.

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What is Coding for SEO?

Is HTML Necessary for Search Engine Optimization?

Which Language is Best for SEO?

Technical SEO and Coding

What are the Basic SEO Coding Skills?

Conclusion

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What is Coding for SEO?

Any site is the attentive work of programmers who use coding. To put it simply, it is a kind of communication between a computer and a person. Coding is the language needed to create web pages and manipulate their content. Programmers learn different programming languages (Python, Java, Swift, C#, C++, etc.) to execute different scenarios. But for working with web pages, the most popular is HTML.

Let's go back to SEO and consider whether you need programming language skills. Many programs for Search Engine Optimization already have built-in basic functions. For example, the Yoast plugin from WordPress. So you don't have to become a great programmer to be successful in SEO. But from the point of view of new knowledge, coding will not interfere with your work. On the contrary, it will help a lot. For example, you can find the source code of a competitor's site at any time and identify key features that will benefit your company.

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Is HTML Necessary for Search Engine Optimization?

It is important to say that HTML is significant for the SEO environment. It works with page content, title tags, canonical, meta tags, H1, and alt text. You don't need to be a perfect HTML expert, but basic knowledge is required. Of course, plugins and programs make it easy to implement HTML, but you will often encounter website tags. It directly affects the ranking of site pages, page indexing, and snippets in search engine results. Therefore, you need to learn at least the fundamental terminology of HTML and be able to use it effectively. 

A specialist may work on your site's technical side, but you must learn technical SEO basics. It will help you ask the programmer the right questions and quickly make changes so that your website gets the highest ranking in search engines. HTML is important for SEO, but you can learn this programming language at a lower level. Many SEO experts claim that people can only become professionals in this field if they always strive to develop their knowledge.

A versatile person always succeeds. Part of the work related to HTML could be entrusted to programmers; SEO experts are more versed in the technologies used by Google:

➡ Types of ranking factors.

➡ Indexing robots and their variations.

➡ Working with Google Search Console.

➡ Mobile SEO and AMP.

➡ Working with Google Analytics.

➡ Various Google services related to search (maps, market, Direct, Adwords, etc.).

➡ Formation of snippets.

➡ Micro-markup (products, contacts, etc.).

➡ Elements in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page).

➡ Indexing factors (last-modified headers, rel=canonical attribute, etc.).

The employee’s area of expertise in SEO is filtering link donors by link metrics, site-wide quality indicators, and subject proximity. It is also the ability to build the right anchor list and understand the types of links and types of donor sites. Basic coding skills can be another item you’ll learn to improve your working qualification.

These are the ten essential skills a professional SEO must have to be hired.

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Which Language is Best for SEO?

It is best to choose HTML to work with the design and content of web pages. But if you need a good tool for automating SEO tasks, then we recommend another programming language. It is Python. It has the advantage of automating boring SEO tasks using APIs. The source code is open; you can extract data (such as titles, snippets, and URLs for given keywords) and implement machine learning algorithms. The SEO effectiveness is to develop valuable content, and Python will help with this.

It's a great programming language with various automation options for low-level tasks. But working with it requires certain knowledge, so hiring a Python specialist who can realize your goals is better. With this scripting language, your site optimization processes will run much faster, saving you weeks and even months of meticulous manual labor. In addition to Python, Node.js and PHP are used for SEO tasks; in certain cases, it is Ruby.

Technical SEO and Coding

If we consider SEO as a big puzzle, then the technical part is just a small point. It can be called a certain tactic of optimizing and developing the site so that search engines can index, display, and crawl it. Technical SEO is very important because you can create the coolest and most thoughtful content, and your random visitors will turn into customers. To see how your working website performs in technical SEO, you must conduct a large-scale technical audit.

For search engines to be able to index your site’s content, you need SEO coding. That is, you need the process of writing or rewriting programs for the site in a specific way so that search engines can read it. Open the source code of any page; this is the language the web browser understands to “read” the website's content. 

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What are the Basic SEO Coding Skills?

Many SEO experts regularly improve their knowledge in this area of work. But mainly, it concerns marketing and advertising functions. Technical skills (SEO programming) should be noticed. We have already discussed that basic coding knowledge will help you in your work, but it is unnecessary to learn this thoroughly. 

You can learn a programming language's basics to understand how a website's interface and back end work. It will help you change a web page without breaking its code. You also need to know basic information about HTML and CSS. The former will help you add custom tags or keywords to your website. CSS will be useful for creating the best UI/UX.

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Conclusion

Any field of activity requires special skills. SEO is a unique environment in which you can become a true professional. To study coding or not is your personal choice. But the improvement and development of your personality will lead you to the pinnacle of success.

Acquiring basic coding skills through a technical SEO course can significantly enhance your ability to understand and improve website architecture, structured data and UX, ultimately boosting search engine rankings. However, to effectively work with the CMS (Content Management System), software that helps you create and manage website content, it is enough to pass just courses in WordPress.

The new material will be helpful, and it will save you a lot of money (due to the lack of need to hire a specialist in programming). Try to develop and be versatile, and you will notice significant prosperity in your SEO career.