Daily Archives: January 6, 2022

Can You Learn SEO Without Coding? | Everything You Need To Know

Learn-SEO-Without-Coding

I am often get asked whether you can learn SEO without any coding knowledge?

When it comes to search engine optimisation, many people think that you need coding knowledge in order to be successful and to build websites that perform to an optimal level.

In this blog post, we will explore the different aspects of SEO and how you can improve your website’s ranking without any coding experience.

Why is coding important for a website?

  1. Why is coding important for a website?
  2. What is technical SEO?
  3. Do I Need Coding Skills for SEO?
  4. Is it hard to code a website?
  5. Is SEO a programming language?
  6. Which coding language is best for SEO?
    1. JavaScript
    2. CSS
    3. PHP
  7. Conclusion

A website is built by coding and whatever a customer sees on the front end is down to what is coded in the back end.

Whilst the visual aspect of a website is what the customer sees, the back end coding is what search engines use to understand a website.

View page source and meta data

Organised and structured code makes it easier and faster for Google to crawl your website as well as help your site load faster, in turn providing quicker load times and better user experience.

All of this can help your organic rankings significantly and will give you a better chance of succeeding within your particular space. Whilst website coding can be a challenge if you are a novice, there are ways in which you can still build a well structured, lightweight website without too much technical SEO or coding knowledge.

What is technical SEO?

When we talk about coding and SEO, we are generally talking about technical SEO and what goes on under the hood of your website.

Technical SEO is a subdivision of SEO that involves optimising the infrastructure of a website to make it easier for web crawlers to crawl and be discovered by search engines.

what is technical seo

It also involves improving speed and loading times which we know is another significant ranking factor for Google. It deals with page speed, site navigation, robots files, sitemaps, organising code and a lot more.

Technical SEO is one of the most difficult aspects of SEO but when done right it can really help with rankings and user experience.

Do I Need Coding Skills for SEO?

You do not neccessarily need any coding skills when it comes to SEO. You can definitely still rank a website with little coding knowledge as long as you know of the best practices when it comes to creating a website from scratch.

When it comes to technical SEO, you may need some level of coding knowledge but it is not essential in order to get the basics right. There are also website builders that can help make your life a lot easier if you are unsure about how much coding knowledge you have.

Website builders like Oxygen provide very lightweight website themes out of the gate that makes creating fast and well-designed websites a lot easier.

Is it hard to code a website?

Whilst coding a website from scratch may be difficult, there are plenty of content management systems that allow you to create beautifully designed websites without the need to code.

Whilst good coding practices will allow you to create a super lightweight and ultra-fast website, there are ways in which you can achieve fast loading speeds without the need of too much coding knowledge.

Depending on the scale of the website, you may need professional developers at some point. For instance, large eCommerce websites that have thousands of pages will have much more chance of coming across a bug or an issue that will need some back end development work.

But, if you are just looking to get started and have little to no developer experience, there are a number of great solutions that can help you get a website built without the need of any coding knowledge.

Is SEO a programming language?

When we talk about SEO, it is not strictly in development terms and is not a programming language. SEO or search engine optimisation is a term that specifically relates to search engine optimisation.

A programming language is a notation designed to connect instructions to a machine or a computer. Programming languages are mainly used to control the performance of a machine or to express algorithms.

Source: Wat Electronics

When we talk about programming languages, we are talking strictly about development and coding languages that are used to build websites. There are many programming languages that developers will use to build a website but is not generally a term that SEO professionals link with their line of work.

SEO is much more about optimising a website experience for search engine crawlers and whilst there is certainly overlap between the development and SEO world, it is not strictly a term that is linked directly with programming language.

Which coding language is best for SEO?

Whilst you do not neccessarily need to know too much about coding in order to execute a successful SEO campaign, it is worth noting the more notable coding languages that are generally best practice.

The best coding languages for SEO include:

JavaScript

JavaScript is one of the most popular coding languages used in website design. It is used very widely and effectively in creating desktop applications and websites. Javascript is supported by most browsers and is a great way to create visually engaging designs for your website.

javascript example

CSS

Cascading style sheets or CSS is another widely used coding language. When paired with HTML, CSS allows a developer to decide and define how a web page or a website will eventually look. It enables developers to have control over styling, font sizes, colours and other visual elements.

css example

PHP

The term ‘PHP’ can be defined as the PHP hypertext processor language and is a free server-side scripting language that has been designed for not just web development but also it is used in general-purpose programming platforms.

Conclusion

To summarise, you certainly do not need to be a coding expert to be able to learn SEO effectively.

You can still rank a website very well without the need to have extensive coding knowledge. Using a lightweight website builder, ensuring your images are compressed and are the right size and then utilising an organised site architecture will help massively.

Combine this with a good on-page SEO experience for your users and there is no reason why you can’t optimise a site well enough to rank.

Can I Use Ahrefs For Free? | How Good Is The Free Version?

Use-Ahrefs-For-Free

If you’re looking for a great SEO tool, you’ve probably come across Ahrefs.

It’s one of the most popular options out there and it’s packed with features to help you boost your website’s search engine rankings.

But is the paid version worth the investment? Or can you get by with the free version?

In this post, we’ll take a look at how good the free Ahrefs tool is compared to the paid version, and whether or not it’s worth upgrading.

What is Ahrefs?

  1. What is Ahrefs?
  2. What versions are available for Ahrefs?
  3. Is Ahrefs the best SEO tool?
  4. Can you use Ahrefs for free?
  5. What other free SEO tools are available?
  6. Google Analytics
  7. Google Search Console
  8. Google Data Studio
  9. Conclusion

Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that people use to get higher Google rankings.

It has features like link building analysis, keyword research and competitor analysis which are designed for marketing professionals in the business of boosting their websites online presence.

what is ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of many SEO tools that you can use to monitor rankings, site audit data as well as a number of other great features to analyse the performance of your website.

Whilst Ahrefs is a great SEO tool that a lot of professionals use, I am often asked whether there is a free version of Ahrefs that you can use for SEO’s just getting started.

What versions are available for Ahrefs?

In terms of the versions that are available, there are four main pricing packages that you can buy from Ahrefs.

The basic “Lite” package starts from $99 per month and goes up to $999 per month depending on the number of users you need for the account.

Ahrefs package options

There is actually a free version of Ahrefs that offers limited data. If you have sites connected in Google Search Console, you can import them into the free version and view your organic traffic and keywords that are ranking.

However, this version is very limited in terms of competitor data and depending on what you are looking to get out of it, you will find yourself limited on the free version.

Is Ahrefs the best SEO tool?

Ahrefs is one of many great SEO tools that you can use to make informed decisions about your SEO strategy.

Whilst the free version of Ahrefs is quite limited, there are many other free SEO tools that you can use to extract useful insights for your online business. Ahrefs is widely considered as one of the best SEO tools that are available in terms of the data that it provides but if you are looking for a free tool, then you may want to consider using others available before paying for these kinds of tools.

Google analytics dashboard

Google Search Console and Google Analytics can provide great insights without the need to pay a monthly subscription. For example, if you are an eCommerce business, you can use Google Analytics to find out the exact keywords that users are searching for when they go to make a purchase.

This can help you find out the exact kinds of phrases that are converting into sales and in turn enable you to create better-optimised pages for those particular phrases.

Can you use Ahrefs for free?

Whilst the full version of Ahrefs and all of its features are not available for free, you can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free which connects to your verified Google Search Console properties.

ahrefs webmaster tools

This allows you to look at the backlinks of your website, organic traffic and keyword data but only if the site is connected via GSC. It also allows you to run basic website audits and spot any issues that you may not necessarily find in your other SEO tools.

If you want to research your competitors and look at what other people are doing, then you will be required to upgrade to a paid plan. However, the free version of Ahrefs can be valuable and provides a fairly good surface look at your SEO performance.

What other free SEO tools are available?

There are many free SEO tools that you can use if you are not able to get the most out of the free version of Ahrefs. Some of the best tools are actually free and you can still carry out effective SEO research by using these kinds of tools.

Some of the best free SEO tools available include:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a popular free tool that provides in-depth data about your website. It provides a number of useful data points and insights when it is set up correctly. You can track the success of pages and find out which of your pages convert the best and really dig into the overall performance of your website.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another essential SEO tool for your business. Search Console tracks how well all of your pages are performing as well as gives you updates on the overall health of the website. It is necessary to have this tool in order to index your site and update Google when you make changes to certain pages.

Google Search Console

Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio allows users to combine data from different Google tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console to create interactive reports. This tool will enable you to visualise how much money your website is making and look at how efficiently your site is performing both organically and if you are running paid advertising.

Conclusion

Whilst you can use Ahrefs for free, its paid versions provide you with a lot more data and insights. The free version is quite limited if you are looking to use it primarily as a keyword and competitor research tool.

However, there are many free SEO tools that you can get the most out of if you are looking for an affordable solution to your research. I would recommend doing what you can with the free tools provided by Google before making the commitment to buy a monthly plan with Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is certainly a tool that we recommend but only if you are comfortable with making the payments and if you are maximising your use of the free tools provided by Google.