Web developers rejoice! Google revealed the beta version of web.dev this month. Web.dev is a platform that offers a ton of resources for developers and allows them to test their sites. Web.dev also provides valuable suggestions on how to improve your website so that you might be more user-friendly, and consequently rank higher on SERPs.
I’d even go as far to say that web.dev is just as useful for marketers. Checking your site on web.dev routinely will show you how well you’re doing in SEO, accessibility, security, and more important aspects that make a site successful. Web.dev is built on the mission that a website should be discoverable, reliable, and engaging as well as drive meaningful conversions. Web.dev itself is accessible to most if not all web developers; all you need is a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and/or JavaScript.
Web.dev Resources
Web.dev is divided into two sections: testing and learning. With six structured learning paths, web developers (experts and beginners alike) have all the resources they need to make their site user and search engine-friendly.
Fast Load Times
If you didn’t already know this, users don’t like to wait on a site to load for more than three seconds. If your website takes longer than that, you’re losing potential conversions and leads. In this learning path, you’ll explore the significance of performance optimization and measurement. Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Measure your site’s performance
- Optimize images and fonts
- Optimize JavaScript
Network Resilience
This pathway will teach you how to keep a consistent performance even when the network quality isn’t so great. Connections vary across the globe, so it’s important that your website reaches those with lower-quality networks as well. This pathway includes topics such as:
- Measuring network performance
- Caching tools
- Caching strategies
Security
Security is a popular topic these days, and a lot more complex than just implementing a CAPTCHA. GDPR, SSL certificates, and general cybersecurity all affect your site’s performance on SERPs. With the rise of DevSecOps, the importance of security doesn’t just fall on the systems administrator, it should be implemented at every stage of deployment. This pathway offers techniques and tips to keep your website secure and your users safe. This includes understanding the basics of security and how to browsers protect against attacks.
Discoverability
This should be the overall goal of every site. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is or how valuable the content is, it’s pointless if users can’t easily find your site. This is achievable through SEO best practices: keywords, link building, structured data, etc. In addition to users, you should ensure that your site is discoverable by search engines. Clear content hierarchies and page architecture help search engines figure out where the most important information lives on your site. A simple sitemap can streamline the process of crawling and indexing. Instead of crawling every link and every page on your site, search engines can simply visit your sitemap to find a blueprint of your website.
In this track, you’ll learn how to :
- Measure discoverability
- Ensure that search engines can crawl, index, and understand your pages
- Implement a responsive website
Installable
This means your website can live on your users’ home screen without downloading an app. This is thanks to the technology behind progressive web apps. With this tool, users won’t have to worry about WiFi or typing in URLs, they can simply click on your company’s logo and go straight to your site the minute they turn on their device.
Accessibility
This learning track is in the works, but the concept is nothing new. There are a lot of online resources to get you started with accessibility. This aspect of your website should promote usability for ALL users including those with hearing or visual impairments. Alt-text for images and transcriptions for audio are just a couple of ways to get started.
Web.dev Analysis and Suggestions
Using Google’s Lighthouse, web.dev analyzes web pages and offers feedback. This is a great resource for marketers! Enter a URL, and you’ll receive a score on a scale of 0-100 based on five aspects for that page. Each section includes suggestions to help you increase your score. While some topics may be more technical than others, this section helps marketers determine areas for improvement.
- Performance
- Lighthouse audits your website to determine it’s speed.
- Progressive Web App
- Your website is assessed against a baseline progressive web app checklist, if applicable.
- Accessibility
- This section highlights any issues that might prevent users from accessing your content.
- Best Practices
- This is a catch-all for elements of your site including HTTPS usage and image aspect ratios.
- SEO
- Last, but definitely not least, you’ll receive an SEO score. Marketers will find this section especially helpful when it comes to discoverability.
Here’s what the audit looks like for Sevaa Group’s homepage:
Our home page received a 62 for performance, a 61 for accessibility, a 64 for best practices, and a whopping 91 for SEO. Obviously, there’s room for improvement on all fronts. As a marketer, I can take the suggestions listed for each aspect, and relay them to the correct team members.
Your rank on SERPs takes into account more than just keywords and content. As web.dev reveals, aspects like accessibility and load time also play important roles in the user’s experience. Your website’s performance requires the skills of everyone on the team. Not only does your content need to be optimized, but your site needs to be secure, fast, and accessible. You don’t have to be a developer to use web.dev, but certain suggestions may be more technical than others. Sevaa Group can build solutions personalized for your site.
