Google does well with JavaScript. But does this mean Angular, based on JavaScript, will work equally well to get higher indexed? It’s not that simple.
To make an SEO-friendly website that ranks high, you need to configure and implement settings like title, robots meta tags, and SEO-friendly URLs. You should also make your website fast and user-friendly.
For starters, you’ll want to make sure that your website is properly indexed by Google. You can do this by performing regular SEO technical audits. These audits can help to identify any technical issues that may be preventing your site from being properly indexed. For example, some common technical issues that can be identified through an SEO technical audit by SE Ranking include crawling issues with robots meta tags and canonicals, issues with HTTP status codes and redirects, page speed issues, mobile-friendliness issues, etc. By addressing these issues, you can help to ensure that your site is properly indexed by Google and accessible to potential customers.
For Angular websites, page speed and mobile friendliness are key. Page speed is a critical factor in determining how easily users can access your site, and mobile-friendliness is increasingly important as more users access the internet from mobile devices. By regularly checking these factors, you can help your site remain accessible and user-friendly.
Moreover, just Google is not enough. You also want your website to be optimized for social network crawlers and far less advanced search engines. And to do so, you need to incorporate practices like pre-rendering, dynamic rendering, and server-side rendering.
Let’s look at Angular from the SEO perspective. Read on!
Is Angular SEO-Friendly by Default?
By default, Angular websites are programmed to run on the client’s side. Put simply, when you launch an Angular website, the first thing that loads is not the content of the website but an empty HTML shell. This HTML shell then fetches the script to render the content and fill the page.
The browsers and crawlers are capable of accessing the text, links, or metadata of the website only after they have rendered the Javascript. This rendering limitation is what makes Angular SEO problematic.
Fortunately, Google has included a new native library that allows bots and crawlers to scan the page, making AngularJS SEO-friendly. With this native library, you can configure Angular’s universal settings to run it in pre-render mode.
Problems With Angular SEO
Now with Google’s new library, it’s clear that Angular websites can rank higher on the internet. But before getting into the “how” part, let’s first look at two major issues with Angular SEO.
1. Content Is Not Visible to Bots
If bots can’t find the right content, your website is never going to rank. And Angular doesn’t load a page’s content unless it is explicitly told to. This means that Angular websites are not completely equipped to render correct metadata and content.
Of course, the data will be visible to users. But web crawlers often miss this data because they try to fetch it directly from the source. The problem with Angular is that it does not store the data on the source. The data visible to visitors is called via an API connection which removes all the crawlable content from the source code.
In simpler terms, SPAs can only preserve the basic structure of the site, and the rest of the content is called dynamically through an API. And because API-generated content doesn’t have HTML source code, there’s nothing for the bots to crawl, making it harder for the website to rank.
2. Page Loading Speed Limitations
Page speed has been a prominent factor for websites to rank higher. And this is where Angular is lacking.
No doubt, Angular websites provide stability, scalability, and seamless use. But proper speed optimization is missing.
As we mentioned above, the majority of Angular first loads a blank screen for a few seconds until the homepage is completely rendered. This makes visitors leave the site without even having a look at the content.
When visitors leave the site so soon, the bounce rate increases, which limits the ranking potential of the Angular website.
4 Steps To Make Angular Website SEO-Friendly
Angular gives you access to multiple features that can help you create a unique website. It’s not the most competitive framework when it comes to SEO, but it can still work for you by configuring some settings.
The steps mentioned below will help you make your Angular website SEO-friendly.
1. Make Content Visible to Website Crawlers
Accessing content is difficult for the spider on an Angular website. You must render the metadata and content correctly to ensure that the spider is able to absorb all the information. And because Angular doesn’t store data, you should modify the source code to enable the crawlers to obtain the specific content from the source code.
2. Dynamic Rendering Is a Must
As we discussed above, one of the major reasons why Angular websites are not SEO-friendly is because they fetch data through API calls. By implementing dynamic rendering, you’ll be able to create static HTML files that can be easily crawled by the spider for indexing.
You can then work on your server to send the web crawlers to the pre-rendered static HTML pages and redirect your visitors to your Angular website. This way, both web crawlers and site visitors have access to the content that’s meant for them.
3. Work On Metadata
Metadata like the title and description is the content that summarizes the complete information of the website. These text fragments should not only be a part of the source code but on the website too. They allow the crawler to get the accurate context and significance of the content present on the website.
Here are the modules you should use to add metadata to your website and change the page titles.
Go to the home.components.ts file and update it with the following changes:
Once you’ve made these changes, you’ll notice that the tiles in the browser tab change dynamically when users visit different pages. If you inspect the code in the browser console, you’ll find the attached metadata there as well. This is the content that web crawlers can easily use to index your site.
Meta details help search engines understand what the site is about and how it should be ranked. They also help users find the site when they are searching for specific terms. As a result, including meta details on a website can have a significant impact on its overall success.
4. Implement Angular Universal
You should implement Angular Universal to fix any loading time issues with your website. Angular Universal is the technology that comes with Angular which allows you to render the website on the server. This means that the website doesn’t have to wait for the browser to do its work before it can start loading. Instead, the server does all the work and sends the finished product to the browser. This can help to significantly speed up your site’s loading time and also improves core web vitals’.
Ready To Rank Angular Websites Higher on the SERP?
Angular is undoubtedly one of the best available frameworks for websites. But it fails to provide a lot of SEO options. However, you can still make your website rank higher by following the above-mentioned hacks. That said, keep a close eye on the performance of your websites by running regular SEO technical audits.