SEO Equals Good Code, Introducing HTML5 & New Coding Best Practices

Classic Search Engine Optimization typically starts with something like this, “Add your keywords in weighted places, like headings, page titles, and so on.” With the introduction of HTML5 comes many new elements, such as “mark,” “definition,” “section,” to name a few. These new elements may be paving the path for the future of SEO best practices. Here’s how:

HTML5 – It’s Not the HTML You Used to Know!

HTML5 is bringing many new features & elements, which are changing best practices in the layout of a website. Webmasters are now encouraged to use these new features for better cleaner code. Search Engines read through your website’s content, which you can now more effectively classify. Just like adding a tag for headings to let the Search Engine know it’s a heading, if some content is a definition, there’s a tag for that now too. You can literally code your entire website into sections, definitions, addresses, quotes, pieces of code, in addition to all of the standard HTML tags. Say goodbye to blocks of text just hanging around in your code, or even in a random Div. Say Hello to communicating more effectively with search engines.

Simplicity is another important feature. Code for Doc Type & StyleSheets now requires less. For instance, here’s all you need for your basic site layout:



(!DOCTYPE html>

(html>

(head>

(title>Title of the document

(/head>

(body>
The content of the document……

(/body>
(/html>

HTML5 Brings Other Exciting New Features

For web designers & masters, HTML5 also introduces some exciting possibilities in terms of using videos (some solution to the Flash dilemma), other audio & media, form controls, and tons of other HTML5 New Elements!

Will HTML5 Mean Changes to Search Engine Equations?

As of Google’s 2011 SEO Starter Guide, there’s not a lot of emphasis yet on these new items. However, it makes sense that this is important to begin implementing & brushing up on. Google always favors items that improve communication, & HTML5 does just that!

Not So Fast…HTML5 Is Still a Baby

Currently, there are still a few browsers that have not adopted all of the new HTML5 features (Internet Explorer is not surprisingly one of those. Although, if Browser Use Stats keep trending as they have been, this may soon not be an issue!).

Are you your own webmaster? If you want to learn HTML5 now, W3schools provides great guides & details on these features: