How to make progressive web apps SEO-friendly?

SEO is an unavoidable part of any startup or business in today’s world. From small to big businesses, all leverage SEO to make themselves visible.

Another booming focus of many of today’s businesses is website application development. Progressive web app development is a rising trend that helps in combining web and mobile apps. With more and more people making smartphones a part of their daily lives, the need for progressive web apps is increasing.

However, making an SEO-friendly progressive web application is an absolute necessity. In this blog, let us explore how businesses can optimize and make progressive web apps SEO friendly. But, let’s first get the basics right.

Benefits of SEO and PWA integration

SEO is not just for websites. There are many reasons why businesses should not avoid SEO for PWAs. Let us take a look at a few reasons:

Enhanced indexability

PWA pages each have their own URL, which makes it easier for Google crawlers to crawl and index the content. In addition, the fact that the PWA has already been designed for mobile devices means that your indexing process will be sped up by using it.

Improved loading speed

PWAs are faster to load than any other websites, making them an excellent SEO benefit for PWAs. Customers will be more happy due to the page’s speed, which will encourage them to explore more.

As a result of the PWA integration, the website’s loading speed will be at an ideal level, which improves the user experience, lowers the bounce rate, and meets Google’s requirements for top results.

Increase in traffic

Any factors can bring more traffic to the PWAs. With improved loading speed, customers will visit the website and explore more, thereby increasing the time spent on the web app. This will help in gaining visibility and chances of ranking higher in search engines.

Push notifications, user experience, mobile-friendliness, etc., help increase traffic to the website. Moreover, SEO practices of utilizing HTTPS can help PWA websites boost their rankings, ultimately driving more traffic to the website.

Decreases bounce rate

Using “add to home screen,” automatic updates, offline mode, push notifications, and a full-view screen, web app visitors might feel like they’re using a native application. As a result, the bounce rate will be reduced, and more traffic will be generated, allowing the site to go up the Google rankings.

How to make PWAs SEO-friendly?

Make use of HTTPS

Search engines penalize websites that use untrustworthy resources. Consequently, the use of HTTPS is now a necessity.

Use HTTPS and a 301 redirect status code to ensure that your progressive web app is more secure than a non-HTTPS app. SEO-friendly progressive web apps can be identified by the existence of HTTPS.

Use canonical URLs

Make sure the same content doesn’t surface in many places on the web, especially on social media. If this occurs, the SERPs may become muddled, and you may not receive the results you expect to see.

Use the rel= “canonical” link element to indicate to search engines that a particular URL represents the master copy of a page. SEO ranking for progressive web apps can be improved by using the canonical tag to prevent the appearance of ‘duplicate’ or similar content on several URLs.

Test performance of PWAs

Use bots and people to test your PWAs in order to ensure that it works properly. In order to optimize your PWA for search, it is critical to know how Google bots interpret the content on your page. Testing will help you in making the essential corrections and improvements to enhance PWA performance.

Optimize titles and descriptions

Optimizing your web app’s titles and descriptions is a best practice that can help you improve your SEO. You may do this by ensuring that each page’s title, description, and URL are all unique.

This would help in gaining higher search engine rankings. This is also something that is required to improve your user experience.

External linking

Search engines regard external linking as equivalent to third-party endorsements, it has a higher ranking power than internal linking. An external link is an important ranking factor since it provides the viewers of your PWA with references to support its authority.

Metadata structure matters

Metadata gives search engines a better idea of a page’s intent. Website owners can use it to find out which keywords to target when developing new pages of content.

SEO and ranking are influenced by XML-based applications’ ability to contextualize and categorize data. A smooth transfer to any social networking platform is made easier with correctly prepared metadata.

Avoid fragment identifiers

URL structures that include fragment identifiers like # or #! are not indexed by Google bots since they do not recognize them. Every page that makes up your progressive web app should have its own independently crawlable URL and be accessible through that URL. In order to improve your visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), it is recommended that you steer clear of using fragment identifiers in PWAs.

Responsive design

You need to make sure that your design is responsive if you want to rank better in the search results. You can do this by passing the mobile-friendly test provided by Google. This includes properly configuring the viewport tag as well as dynamically scaling the design components such as fonts, margins, buttons, paddings, and so on to accommodate a variety of perspectives and resolutions.

Wrapping up

You can improve your visitors’ experience and your website’s aims by developing web apps. Developers can help you plan, sketch, construct, test, and deliver an excellent app. SEO helps you get an app that ranks high in search results and attracts visitors to your website.

Both search engine optimization (SEO) and progressive web apps (PWAs) are here to stay as strategies for digital marketing. PWAs are a terrific option that engages users, but creating them alone won’t be enough. That is where the role of SEO comes in.

Make sure you use the pointers mentioned in the blog to make your progressive web app SEO-friendly.