It’s official! I’ve signed myself up for DevPoint Labs’ 11-week full stack developer bootcamp this coming May 6th through July 23rd in Downtown Salt Lake City.
But Logan, why sign up for a developer bootcamp when you already have marketable SEO skills?
Because of this.
And this.
And this.
If you’re following along here, there’s a pretty clear message. Google is investing heavily in the future role of JavaScript and the web.
Per John Mueller, “You’re going to run into significantly more JavaScript over the next years than in the 2’ish decades in SEO before. If you’re keen on technical SEO, then past HTML you’re going to need to understand JS more and more.”
But there’s a catch to JavaScript’s projected growth on the web. Googlebot has some real sticky issues crawling & rendering most JS-based pages & components. This presents challenges for SEOs, but with challenges come opportunities!
The Challenges
I won’t go into all of the details about the SEO challenges with JavaScript. I also don’t yet know enough about JavaScript to cover them, but I do have some experience in my work with SnapFinance.com’s AngularJS framework. Suffice it to say that the majority of SEO challenges exist because search engines struggle to crawl, render, & accurately interpret JavaScript web pages and applications.
A quick side tangent. Interestingly enough, AngularJS is one JavaScript framework developed by Google & released in 2009. When it was released, it was said to have come with a handful of disappointing issues. Strange how Google would push a product that gives their own search engine problems, right?
Well, many of the bugs that came with that original AngularJS framework are said to have been fixed in the new framework that Google released in 2017, simply called, “Angular,” or “Angular 4.0.” Our developers at Snap Finance were pretty excited about that, saying that the new Angular is significantly more improved than its predecessor, AngularJS.
Opportunities for Technical SEOs with JavaScript & Other Full Stack Skills
- As mentioned above, Google’s John Mueller believes that acquiring JavaScript skills will help SEOs differentiate themselves in an ever-shifting web environment. When I read his comments on Search Engine Roundtable last October, I keyed in. SEOs don’t always agree with John Mueller, but this is not a prediction to be taken likely. JavaScript on the web is growing, and that means SEOs should pay attention to this one.
- Another comment that really caught my attention was Rand Fishkin’s 2nd piece of advice for SEOs in the article he wrote about his last day at Moz last February. He writes, “My number one tip for marketers seeking to grow their career opportunities is this: specialize. Specialize deeply. I don’t mean ‘SEO’ or ‘Email marketing,’ I mean specialization like ‘I’m the best link-focused SEO for the mobile gaming world.’ Expanding from a specialization (if you so choose) is vastly easier, in my experience, than becoming known for a broad practice. This is equally true for companies as for individuals.” He didn’t mention JavaScript here, but couple Rand’s advice with John Mueller’s advice and you’ve got yourself a dangerously potent technical SEO specialist.
- Even with JavaScript’s rendering challenges, it can do a shit-ton of things that HTML can’t. HTML is pretty much a static language for static pages. JavaScript is a dynamic language for dynamic pages. If you want your website to do cool shit, JavaScript will do it for you. No wonder John predicts more JS growth.
- If you can dream it, you can render it. <– not actually a tip. I just thought that was clever.
- But if you can render it, you can rank it. This one is a tip. Let’s say your company’s web page leverages JavaScript to give users a handy debt interest calculator, which competes for phrases like “debt calculators.” If your competitors’ tools are also using JS, but are not rendering properly, guess who wins the ranking game? 😉
Final Thoughts
I’m really excited about this course. Not just to stand out as an SEO, but to learn how to build cool shit. I’ve thought about learning more code many times since I started my digital marketing career. I even tried self-teaching with free resources like Codecademy, but like so many other good intentions & New Year’s resolutions, the follow-through would get stuck in the minutiae of my day-to-day distractions.
DevPoint Labs gives me an exciting chance to focus in a well-organized curriculum with expert teachers, like-minded peers, and a focused environment. Beyond JavaScript, I’ll get to cover the gambit things like Ruby, SQL, working with APIs, and other valuable concepts for a full stack developer knowledge base.
Time to level-up!