Include files make it easier for seo

When you are coding a design into a functional website and you have access to a server-side language, you have access to tools that make a job more efficient. One of those tools is the ability to use include files.

If you are familiar with wordpress and other CMS platforms you most likely know that it uses a global footer file, sidebar, and other files. When you edit the one file, the changes become live across the entire website on pages that include that file.

By using a global include file such as a navigation you can easily make a change on the navigation file to add links to new pages. Once you make the change then your visitors can click the link to the new page(s). If you used html extensions then you would have had to make the same link additions, but you would have to open every single html file on your website and insert those changes which can take a large amount of time.

We recently did some work on a clients website that was using wordpress and they had their site redesigned with extra static pages. The designer did not know about include files so he named all of the pages with a .html extension. At $40+ per hour with having to rename every page on their site to be .php and then having to go in and put the header, footer, and both sidebars in an include file, then changing the links in the relevant files and on the pages that had links, it took over 2 hours to complete the task. Now, if the navigation or footer links need to be updated it will be a 2 minute task.

The reason I rely on includes is because we work on a large volume of search engine marketing clients. We need to be as efficient as possible. You can always use some php code to create dynamic meta  tags that only appear on the relevant pages for seo purposes. You can also add new content pages then update the footer links if you need to. It is smart math to use includes.