Laravel is a PHP framework that helps you build web applications. It gives you a set of tools that allow you to focus on your application’s development, and it makes it easy to use third-party packages like a CMS or blog system.
Laravel is also very SEO-friendly. Many people who use Laravel don’t even realize how much it helps them with SEO—but it does! In this article, we’ll look at some of the most important SEO tools that Laravel provides out of the box, and then we’ll go through some additional packages that will help you make your site even more search engine friendly.
Table of Contents
Seo Tools For Laravel
Search Engine Optimization, popularly known as SEO, is definitely not dependent on the framework on which your website is built.
However, the right choice of a development framework can make your website SEO-friendly. For instance, a website based on Laravel PHP will help you generate SEO-friendly URLs easily.
SEO agencies having worked with Laravel or any seasoned digital marketer will appreciate the amount of SEO effort that can be saved by optimizing the old dynamic URL structures as given in the following example,
An application built on Laravel can be structured to have its profile URL like https://yourdomain.tld/user/profile
But if you’re not using a framework, you might end up with:
https://yourdomain.tld/components/profile.php
The structure of URLs is known to have a profound impact on any website’s user experience, rankings, and link sharing. You may refer to this blog from Moz to fully understand in detail the impact of website URL structure on SEO.
Now, having established the context of performing SEO on a PHP-based website, let’s open this blog for discussion on:
- SEO tools for Laravel websites,
- Useful tips for Laravel developers to build faster web applications,
- Digital Agency partnerships for SEO maintenance.
Laravel SEO Tools – overview, advantages
How many of us are familiar with Yoast SEO and its inevitable integration with WordPress websites?
We’re pretty sure that you all are.
Yoast SEO offers easy, seamless controls for SEO on WordPress CMS even for non-programmers. On the other hand, performing SEO on a website built on a PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) framework like Laravel is to be done from scratch. Since it is just a website development framework, its Client or Webmaster is devoid of control over Meta title and description, unlike WordPress Yoast.
To solve this problem, we’ve listed down some popular community-sponsored SEO tools that work very well with Laravel development.
- Digital Dreams is available as a Laravel SEO package. It is great for Content writers/admin/webmasters who do not know to program but want to edit/update SEO tags from the dashboard.
- Here is a package named Laravel Meta Manager. It is an SEO tool that can add recommended meta tags to your application. It comes with recommended meta tags like Standard SEO, Dublin Core, Facebook OpenGraph, Twitter Card.
- You may follow this link to implement this SEO package in your Laravel application.
- The most popular SEO plug-in for Laravel 5.8+ and Lumen is artesaos/seotools. Refer to the video tutorial below to set up artesaos/seotools on Laravel applications.
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Further, click on this link to explore 20+ open-source tools authored by remote Laravel developers for SEO on your websites built on Laravel.
A popular comment on Quora about SEO for Laravel websites read,
“More than On-Page, Off-Page SEO works better for the Laravel website. I started seeing the result when I started submitting the website on the high domain authority websites even when I regularly update meta tags to each page of the website.”
Use the Google Search Console tool regularly to see whether you are getting the accurate output.
For the core PHP website, you can start with the design and development of the website and then initiate SEO work. Typically in SEO, you can start with the following activities:
Keyword Research & Analysis
Competition Analysis
Error 404-page optimization & Broken Links
Content Optimization & Schema Markup
URL Structure Changes
Title tag, Description tag,
Alt tags (LSI Based)
Additionally, follow our checklist on local SEO services.
You will also find our detailed guide on website redesign most useful.
New Laravel Features for SEO & Digital Marketing
Laravel isn’t the only PHP framework available in the market. You may use CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend Framework, etc. However, Google Trends suggests that Laravel is the only PHP framework whose popularity has shot up in the last 5 years.
New age businesses are increasingly adopting the Laravel framework for website development. In our experience with Laravel development and SEO on websites built on it, we have come to find that Laravel websites offer:
- High-end security with authentication and authorization code
- Authentication of system creation
- Web applications run faster
- Simple method of URL Routing
- Automation testing for website
All the above factors are known to improve Technical SEO, off-page SEO elements more.
One particular case in point is SEO for eCommerce websites built on the Laravel framework.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) combined with Laravel’s dynamic framework can make a powerful eCommerce website. Not only it enhances the page speed and lowers the bounce rates, but it is also great for a better user experience. It will have a direct impact on SERP from an SEO point of view as well.
Further, multiple language support, customizable themes, SEO-ready tools, and a unique cache system help build a responsive user website on the Laravel framework.
For example, AliExpress has seen an astounding 104% increase in their conversion rates for users visiting via their progressive app.
We have found one useful resource on Quora that we think might help digital marketers optimize for SEO better on a PHP website. Check it out!
Exclusive Tips For Laravel Developers – plan for SEO optimization while developing & production
Laravel is being preferred by companies for their large and medium-sized backend development. On the other hand, SEO forms a major strategy of any frontend development. However, here are some tips that you can follow to make Laravel websites faster and therefore, optimize efforts for SEO.
SEO doesn’t change for any backend framework that you have used. You have to only make sure that all the on-page optimization is in place and your code is clean, responsive, optimized.
1. Use Caching in Production: You must note that every time you boot your Laravel app, your app determines the middleware, resolves aliases, route groups, and identifies controller action and parameter inputs for every single route entry.
It is a redundant process that could impact the speed of your application. Make use of the following tips:
- You may bypass the route processing by caching all routes running this code: //php artisan route:cache
- You may bypass the configuration file and .env files, use the following code: //php artisan config:cache
- Use config() to access .env variables and avoid using env(). Because you have already cached your configuration files. Using the env function will simply nullify the purpose of caching.
- Cache your blade template views using: //php artisan view:cache
- To cache a manifest of all of your app’s events and listeners run: //php artisan view:clear
2. Remove Dev dependencies from Composer: You may be using some Dev packages to track queries or other development things. However, this must be limited to the development stage and not be moved to the production stage.
Just run a single command in the production: //composer install –prefer-dist –no-dev -o
3. Use Redis, Memcached, or dynamoDB Driver: Choosing the right cache, queue, and drivers can make a difference to application performance.
- In production, use in-memory cache drivers.
- For queue jobs like sending emails, connecting with third-party APIs, uploading large files, updating for the search index, use Redis, SQS, or Beanstalkd drivers. Database driver is not suitable for production.
- For sessions use Database, Redis, Memcached, or DynamoDB drivers.
4. Remove unused Services: All unused services in your product go to config/app.php
Thus, comment on these services during development and do not use them in the production stage.
5. Use Laravel ORM over raw query: Laravel comes with Eager loading (ORM) so use it, avoid writing your own raw query.
6. Minifying and Bundling Assets: Laravel compiles all your CSS and provides a single app.css file, thus reducing multiple HTTP requests to single. Further, remove all unused CSS from your project by using the laravel-mix-purge CSS package.
Choose ColorWhistle For Efficient Results – 360* Website Redesign & SEO Maintenance
We generally recommend WordPress for revamping business websites. However, every project that we undertake is unique. We thoroughly analyze the project’s size, need and recommend any other suitable framework as per the demands.
For businesses looking to develop bigger and better web applications, Laravel is known to offer:
- Custom, Flexible Applications Support: Laravel’s extensive pre-installed authorization libraries have the ability to create and support a variety of websites ranging from eCommerce to simple professional websites. This has also boosted the demand for developing custom third-party applications which can be further utilized to add features to the Laravel website.
- Simple Website Maintenance: Thanks to Laravel’s standout features, like clean code, MVC architecture (which separates logic and presentation), and OOP principles, maintaining a Laravel site over time is simple.
- Low-cost Websites: The cost of hiring a good Laravel developer to build your site will always be factored in. However, the total cost is significantly offset by reduced development costs.
- Scalable Solution: A website built in Laravel can handle website requests much faster than most other frameworks, thanks to its unique message queue system.
- SEO-friendly: Laravel supports caching for your website out-of-the-box which is great for boosting site speed. This makes Laravel an excellent choice for SEO purposes.
However, using Laravel will not simply make your website searchable or recognizable on search engines. You’ll have to add your website from the Webmaster tool, upload sitemap, use meta tags, and do everything else that is usually needed for good SEO.
ColorWhistle takes pride in offering website redesign, SEO implementation as well as maintenance services. We stress a lot on SEO maintenance because search algorithms change over time and thus your website needs to be aligned with it for better results. You may also seek out our assistance in white-label partnerships for Laravel projects.Rewind 10sPlayForward 10s00:0000:00MuteSettingsEnter fullscreen
best laravel seo package
Laravel Packages
Laravel is one of the most popular frameworks for developing web applications. It offers a simple and fast development environment for developers. Laravel aims to take the tedium out of routine web projects like authentication, routing, sessions, and caching, making the development process simple and straightforward. It won’t sacrifice application functionality and facilitates the developers to carry out custom-defined operations. For instance, you can use different ways of accessing relational databases, can perform dependency injection, and much more through these packages.
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There are two types of packages; some are framework independent (stand-alone) and the others are for a specific framework. This tutorial will exclusively cover the best Laravel packages available in the dev market.
One great advantage of using Laravel packages is that they allow access to all the features that the framework offers to its host application, including routing, migrations, tests, views, and numerous other useful features. Another important advantage of a package is the Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle.
In this blog, I will demonstrate the important best Laravel packages that you must know and regularly use in Laravel applications.
Best Laravel Packages
Let’s have a look at the best Laravel packages below, which you can use to optimize your application performance.
- Spatie
Roles and permissions form an important part of many web applications. Laravel historically had a lot of packages for them and improved the core code as well. Spatie Roles & Permission is one of there best permissions package.
Advantages
Roles
Permissions
Direct Permissions
Middleware
Multiple Blade Directives
Artisan commands
- Entrust
This package provides a flexible way to add Role-based Permissions to your Laravel 5 application. This package creates four tables: roles table for storing role records, permissions table for storing permission records, role_user table for storing one-to-many relations between roles and users, permission_role table for storing many-to-many relations between roles and permissions.
You can create a role by writing the following code,
$admin = new Role();
$admin->name = ‘admin’;
$admin->display_name = ‘User Administrator’; // optional
$admin->description = ‘User is allowed to manage and edit other users’; // optional
$admin->save();
Let’s check how to assign the roles to the users,
user = User::where(‘username’, ‘=’, ‘michele’)->first();
$user->attachRole($admin);
Now, you must give permissions to these roles:
$createPost = new Permission();
$createPost->name = ‘create-post’;
$createPost->display_name = ‘Create Posts’;
$createPost->description = ‘create new blog posts’;
$createPost->save();
$admin->attachPermission($createPost);
- Laravel Debugbar
Laravel Debugbar is one of those best Laravel packages that help users add a developer toolbar to their application(s). This package is mainly used for debugging purposes. There are a lot of options available in Debugbar. It will help you to show all the queries that your application offers – everything related to the route – that you have called will show all the rendered templates, as well as all the parameters that you have passed. You can add messages using the Façade (when added), and it will show under the ‘Messages’ tab in Laravel Debugbar.
Debugbar::info($object);
Debugbar::error(‘Error!’);
Debugbar::warning(‘Watch out…’);
Debugbar::addMessage(‘Another message’, ‘mylabel’)
- Laravel User Verification
This package allows you to handle user verification and validates email(s). It generates and stores a verification token for the registered user, sends or queue an email with the verification token link, handles the token verification, sets the user as verified. This package also provides functionality, i.e verified route middleware.
public function register(Request $request)
{
$this->validator($request->all())->validate();
$user = $this->create($request->all());
event(new Registered($user));
$this->guard()->login($user);
UserVerification::generate($user);
UserVerification::send($user, ‘My Custom E-mail Subject’);
return $this->registered($request, $user)
?: redirect($this->redirectPath());
}
- Socialite
Socialite offers a simple and easy way to handle OAuth authentication. It allows the users to login via some of the most popular social networks and services including Facebook, Twitter, Google, GitHub, and BitBucket.
$user = Socialite::driver(‘github’)->user();
// OAuth Two Providers
$token = $user->token;
$refreshToken = $user->refreshToken; // not always provided
$expiresIn = $user->expiresIn;
// All Providers
$user->getId();
$user->getName();
$user->getEmail();
$user->getAvatar();
6.Laravel Mix
Formerly known as Laravel Elixir, Laravel Mix provides a clean and rich Application Programming Interface (API) for defining webpack-build steps for your project. It is the most powerful asset compilation tool available for Laravel today.
mix.js(‘resources/assets/js/app.js’, ‘public/js’)
.sass(‘resources/assets/sass/app.scss’, ‘public/css’);
- Eloquent-Sluggable
Slugging is the process of creating a simplified, URL-friendly version of a string by converting it to one case and removing spaces, accented letters, ampersands, etc. With Eloquent-Sluggable, you can easily create slugs for all the Eloquent models in your project.
class Post extends Eloquent
{
use Sluggable;
protected $fillable = [‘title’];
public function sluggable() {
return [
‘slug’ => [
‘source’ => [‘title’]
]
];
}
}
$post = new Post([
‘title’ => ‘My Awesome Blog Post’,
]);
// $post->slug is “my-awesome-blog-post
- Migration Generator
Migration generator is a Laravel package that you can use to generate migrations from an existing database, including indexes and foreign keys. When you run the following command, you can create migrations for all the tables in your database.
php artisan migrate:generate
You can also choose only certain tables that you want to migrate:
php artisan migrate:generate table1,table2
9.Laravel Backup
This Laravel package creates a backup of all your files within an application. It creates a zip file that contains all files in the directories you specify along with a dump of your database. You can store a backup on any file system. To create a backup, all you need to do is to run the following command:
php artisan backup:run
10.No Captcha
No Captcha is a package for implementing Google reCaptcha validation and protecting forms from spamming. First, you need to obtain a free API key from reCaptcha.
NoCaptcha::shouldReceive(‘verifyResponse’)
->once()
->andReturn(true);
$response = $this->json(‘POST’, ‘/register’, [
‘g-recaptcha-response’ => ‘1’,
‘name’ => ‘Pardeep’,
’email’ => ‘pardeep@example.com’,
‘password’ => ‘123456’,
‘password_confirmation’ => ‘123456’,
]);
11.Laravel GraphQL
GraphQL is a data query language that provides an alternative to traditional REST architecture. Besides, GraphQL you can also read more about the laravel forge alternative. Developers define the structure of the data required and get the same structure from the server. This package will help you set up and use GraphQL in your Laravel apps.
Laravel Admin Panel Generator
There are two big groups of admin panel generators: visual builders and console-based. The choice depends on your preferences, whether you like to use GUI or type Artisan commands with parameters.
Also, an important term to remember here is a CRUD—this abbreviation stands for “Create, Read, Update, Delete”—these core operations are the building blocks of all admin panels.
- Voyager: The Missing Laravel Admin
Voyager stands out with a polished and professional interface, but the main point is that it just works. Clear usage instructions, user-friendly front-end theme, no obvious bugs or unfinished parts—that’s Voyager for you. Even the icons like the captain’s picture make it look nice overall.
Voyager offers interesting features, such as dummy-data, media manager, etc.
13.LaraAdmin: Admin Panel + CRM
After installing and logging into your admin panel, this package allows you to visually create modules, which represent your CRUDs.
- Orchid
RAD platform works fittingly well for building a business application using the Laravel framework. It can act as the core base for web applications or can perform the functions of CMS, CMF, or admin panel for your website.
Laravel Ecommerce Packages
15 Bagisto
Bagisto is an open-source Laravel eCommerce package that has managed to catch the eyes of the Laravel community, in a very short period. It offers out-of-the-box Laravel user management, multi-warehouse inventory management options, and much more.
Also, the Laravel CMS package is bundled with built-in user-friendly admin panel navigation, offers functionalities like Multi-Currency, Localization, Access Control Level, Multi-Channel, Payment integration, and much more.
Conclusion
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