How Can Isomorphic JavaScript Help in SEO?

The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Tech Help Canada. This publication discusses how isomorphic Javascript can help in SEO.

SEO for JavaScript-based website requires development, testing, and knowledge. So you can say that JavaScript SEO is one of the most complex task to get done. But even with these many issues, JavaScript (JS) isn’t going anywhere. That’s because it lets you create dynamic and stunning websites that deliver the most amazing user experience.

High Performance Apps and SPAs

Over the years, Google has shifted its focus to high-performance apps and Single Page Apps (SPAs). As more websites shift lane and use JS framework like Angular, React and Polymer, you can bet that JavaScript websites are here to stay. Even though JS websites are quite popular, its SEO is elaborate, making it impossible to rank high on Google.

Javascript Rendering

SEO is important because it helps with search indexing as well as organic traffic. Although Google claims that it has gotten better at crawling and indexing JavaScript, that’s far from the truth.

In theory, Google will render the apps or websites and index its content. But the rendering is far from perfect, which causes your site to rank even lower than before in search engines. The user-experience is negatively impacted too because it can take forever to load all the JS libraries and bootstrap of these apps and websites.

Crawling is very complex in the case of JavaScript-based websites. The things that should be taken into account:

• Compiling and running JS files can be time-consuming.
• Google has to wait for all the steps to complete before it indexes the content.
• Other than rendering, discovering new links can be time-consuming as well for JavaScript-based websites.

For these reasons, we need a hybrid version of dynamic JavaScript that can be easily crawled for the search engines.

Isomorphic Javascript

Isomorphic application is an answer to all these issues. That’s because an isomorphic Javascript code can be executed on both the client and server side. Isomorphic application is amazing for SEO because it can solve the crawling and indexing issues by performing initial rendering on the server. The browser gets HTML, which is used as a base for bootstrapping these applications. But before we move further, let’s discuss what’s Isomorphic JavaScript.

What is Isomorphic JavaScript

It is a simple application that shares the same JavaScript code with both the client and server. This collaboration between the client and the server improves many shortcomings each side had.

With the same JS code being shared on both sides, developers have less code to write which reduces the redundancy too. That is why Isomorphic JS is the best for SPAs or Single Page Applications because it helps in making SPAs fast and SEO compatible.

Also, developers won’t have to code the same functionality twice in two different languages for the client and server. This decreases the development time.

Through Isomorphic JavaScript, you can provide applications with the data from the server. This will cut off the assemble time by using HTML output instead of the browser. This HTML works as if it were rendered by the browser and can be easily used as a base for your application.

Benefits of Isomorphic JS Applications

Here are some benefits of using Isomorphic JS.

Search Engine Indexability

It can be really hard for web crawlers to crawl and index JavaScript. Sometimes crawlers completely disregards JS and analyze the codes without rendering. Rendering JavaScript application requires more computing power and is highly complex, making crawling too expensive for the search engines. That’s why many search engines avoid crawling JavaScripts.

However, Isomorphic applications can solve this issue by rendering the static pages. The JavaScript here is left to run by the browsers for the users. Thus, the crawler and the browser see the same output. This solves the SEO indexing issue. As all of the content is rendered making search engine access the page easily.

Faster Load Time

JavaScript codes are heavy and if you have a slow Internet connection, it can take even more time to load. Think about it, rendering the code to DOM (Document Object Model), waiting for the app or website to bootstrap and performing AJAX requests can take some time.

This leads to slower loading of the app or website which means unhappy visitors and low income through the app or website. For this, Isomorphic JavaScript is a boon as it can solve all the trouble. Once the application is rendered on the server-side, you don’t have to worry about AJAX calls and this leads to reduced rendering on the client side.

Getting Started With Isomorphic JS

Isomorphic JavaScript is a new approach from the standard jQuery mix, so the app based on this requires cutting edge technology. Thus, you need developers comfortable with these technologies and someone who isn’t afraid to experiment with something new.

Isomorphic JS is slowly gaining popularity and that’s because it can build a dynamic app without compromising on the Search Engine Optimization part. Although we won’t recommend it for small projects as it requires a high-level of expertise.

Overall, this can completely solve any SEO issue that’s been baffling for quite a few years. If you are building a new app that is huge, we would recommend you use Isomorphic JS that’s compatible with SEO.

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