I spend a lot of time doing development and figuring out new coding tips and tricks. I don’t, however, spend a lot of time thinking about the copy for a site or how to market it. We often get so hung up on the how that we forget about the why. Catherine Seda’s book gives us great insight into another perspective of web development.

Search Engine Optimization is something that all web developers need to take into consideration these days but it’s more than just making sure you use proper semantic tags. There are other, non-technical, things you can to do to improve your search results.

• Writing your copy to contain proper keywords and phrases
• Making sure your hyperlinks contain proper keywords
• Conducting an outreach campaign to get your site featured on other sites. The more sites that link to you with your keywords, the better your rankings will be
• Learn how to leverage blogs, podcasts, and social networking to increase your traffic.

There are other tactics as well. If you run a website selling office decorations, consider writing an article about how to decorate for a 3rd-party website. You’ll establish yourself as an industry expert, and the links back to your site will increase your search engine rankings.

In short, there’s more to building a website than just writing code. Increasing your awareness of other aspects of development makes you a more well-rounded member of your team and allows you to better serve your clients. Catherine Seda’s book is a great way to start.