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How is HTML5 Going to Affect Your SEO?

By Ben Anderson on 16 November 2011 @ 5:46 PM.

Tags: html5, web design, website design, coding, html5 seo, seo.

HTML5 is the latest version of hyper text markup language, that your browser makes into readable content for web surfers. HTML is what gives search engines the power to index your site properly, and with proper indexation you will have your website ranking appropriately in the SERP's. Now that HTML 5 comes into the picture you certainly have to account for upcoming changes if you are going to remain constant with your search engine optimisation.
So whats the big deal? Why is HTML 5 going to be so important to the search engines. Well, in case you are unfamiliar with HTML5 there is an array of new tags that are going to be used that will help segmentation of a page. Some of these tags include header, footer, section, video, and audio. Thats not all that is changing, but those are some of the big ones that will affect your SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

Learn more about SEO.

Header and footer tags will play a key role in page segmentation. On top of that these tags will help you build more organisation within your HTML file. Most of the time not much content is going in our header. Usually a logo, which will be indexed as an image tag, and then maybe you will have some social icons, maybe a navigation bar. Usually the navigation bar will be its own separate div. For the footer tag you usually have all the links to your website, maybe the author or even contact information. The new tag address will be a suitable fit within your footer tag. You can classify each other part of your page with the section tag.

Sectioning off parts of your html document will help with a few things. First off, the organisation of your document will clearly be better, and identifying parts for editing can be done with a glance. When you are sectioning your HTML document, you are heaping Google index your page, and get a better understanding of what might be displayed. Google is a huge fan of HTML5 and for good reason.

HTML 5 does two important things. It makes coding the markup language easier for us, and ensures proper indexing for the search engines, whether it be Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. The thought of HTML5 may be daunting to some people. Common thoughts are, "oh no, I have to learn everything over again?" This is not that case. In fact it transitions nicely from HTML 4.01, and if you have limited experience with Flash, or Javascript you will actually be able to make an interactive website even easier than before.

One major problem for SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

Learn more about SEO, is the inability for Google to properly map out different video, audio, or complex code languages. What may appear beautifully in the browser, may never even be indexed by Google. In fact it could even hurt you in the ranking if it is deemed as something spammy, which believe it or not, does happen form time to time.

Behold the mighty video tag. This tag lets you use the video as is, just source it, and it is by far the simplest method to have streaming videos for your viewers. W3SCHOOLS is saying that the video tag is supported up to this date by all major browsers. You can find the demo on the video tag here. Now all of your videos will be indexed with ease, and you can display the dimensions as well as the controls for the video with simple lines of code. The audio tag is quite similar, and can be previewed on the same site in the link I have provided.

SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

and HTML 5 doesn't just stop there. There are a number of tags specifically designed to help indexation of your page. The article tag specifies independent, self-contained content. This includes a news story, maybe a forum post, or a user comment. One usage of this tag for SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

Learn more about SEO purposes shows the place where you might be providing great content and including a backlink to your site. This specifies directly where the content will start, and then search engines can break down the relevance of the article with corresponding keyword density. This will be important in the coming months for effective white hat link building service. Essentially what you will have is your own little advertisement, and many spam tactics will hold less weight for SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

Learn more about SEO. There are quite a few more changes HTML5 is bring to the table.

Many of the old tags have some minor differences, but are still usable. Through backwards compatibility you will still be able to use old tags, and tags that are not supported in HTML 5. However, it is important to start getting used to the changes ahead. Another great new tag will be the canvas tag. This virtually lets you draw simple, or complex images that may be interactive. This can be done with a little bit of Javascript, and a little bit of HTML 5 know how. There are canvas tutorials popping up all over the web, so just do a quick search and start learning.

HTML 5 is the future language for web design. This means it will also be the language of SEOAn acronym for 'search engine optimisation', the series of processes used to improve your ranking in search engines and drive more web traffic to your website organically.

Learn more about SEO. Staying current with the internet will help you immensely with your search engine optimisation. New tags will help you more than you think because most were designed to fix problems in past HTML versions. The search engines are big supports of HTML 5, so if you want to be seen in the SERP's, you should be a supporter as well.