How To Design A
Search Engine Friendly Website
There are many websites that fail to target their required
traffic, even if they've had some search engine optimisation
work done. One of the main causes for this is simply because
the website isn't search engine friendly. This is a basic
essential that needs to be incorporated into the design of
all websites at the outset ? think of it as the foundation
to establishing your search engine optimisation strategy.
This article aims to highlight the areas a web designer should
think about and incorporate into their design for maximum
search engine effectiveness:
1. Search Engine Friendly Pages
It is important that when you design your website you not
only bear in mind what your website requirements are, but
also what the requirements are for search engines. Best way
to approach this is to remember that search engines don't
really care about how nice or complicated your graphics or
flash movies are, or how snazzy your javascript is. Instead
search engines look at the code behind your page. Therefore
if you want to impress a search engine, then your code needs
to be nice and easy to read. Now from this I don't mean adding
'comment' tags and breaking the lines of code up with spaces,
but to ensure that the elements the search engine is interested
in, i.e. Title tag, Description tag, Keyword tag (these days
only some search engines really use the keyword tag), Alt
tag, are readable near the beginning of the code. Search Engines
don't like wadding through lines and lines of javascript to
get to the core areas that can help you page's ranking. Therefore
careful planning and positioning of your page elements is
required.
TIPS:
- If you're using table for laying out your page then make
them simple and not too complex.
- Avoid using frames.
- If you need javascripts for navigation purposes, then use
smaller scripts to call up the bulk of the javascript from
a different file.
- Think twice on how to use graphics ? make them relevant
to your content and use the Alt tag for all images.
- Position the main content of the page before the images,
or at least with the images nested between the text.
2. Keywords
Having good keywords is one of the most important areas to
consider when designing a website/webpage.
One of the best tools for this is Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com),
which allows you to identify good competitive keywords for
your pages.
In general the range of keywords associated to your pages
can be very extensive therefore for good concentration and
prominence of keywords it is advisable to carefully select
the top 10-15 keywords. You can always export the results
to Excel and try out other competitive keywords if the ones
you selected initially do not produce any noticeable benefits.
TOP TIP:
Wordtracker offer a one day subscription to their service
from which you can squeeze nearly 2 ? days worth of use! Here's
how ? Sign-up for the service on the evening of Day 1 (the
service will be available almost immediately so you can start
searching for your competitive keywords straight away). You
will also be able to use the service for the whole of Day
2 and strangely for the whole of Day 3! Enough time to get
some good keywords for a lot of pages!
3. Content
Many search engines look at the main body of the page and
identify keywords and phrases that are used within the text.
TIP:
Use competitive keywords relevant to the purpose of the page
within the main body of the page. Always try and ensure that
the keywords are prominent within the text body, i.e. they
appear near the beginning of the page, they are defined using
the 'heading' tag, they are typefaced in bold, or they are
used as hyperlinks.
4. Page Title
This is arguably one of the most important areas of a page
and needs special attention to ensure that a good title is
selected. Similar to many other areas of designing a search
engine friendly page, the Page Title should also have a good
keyword which describes the page content. To keep within the
limits of many search engines the number of words for the
Title shouldn't exceed nine.
5. Page Description
Another important area to work on for good ranking is the
Page Description. This is the text found under the META Description
tag and is displayed to users in the search results. Again,
it is a good idea to pay attention to the use of good keywords
when writing the description, which should be short (not more
than 20-25 words) and sells your page before the user has
even opened it!
6. Graphics
We've covered the use of graphics briefly above, emphasising
the importance of using an Alt tag containing the relevant
keyword(s). Although the use of images can be nice and very
appealing to a website, it is also important to bear in mind
that they shouldn't overpower the textual content of your
page. As a general rule of thumb it is best to stick to a
70/30 ratio (70 text/30 images).
7. Site Map
A Site Map is a fantastic way for search engines to find
all your juicy pages on your website. There are many free
Site Map tools available on the web that'll create your site
map instantly.
8. Navigation Links
Navigation links to other pages on your website should be
nice and easy. There are some engines which find it difficult
to navigate through to the other pages on your website if
the nav bar is too complicated, e.g. complicated pop-ups,
use of flash, etc. Therefore if your site does have complicated
navigation then it's always a good idea to implement simple
text based hyperlinks to your common pages at the bottom of
every page on your website.
Following the basic suggestions above will help lay the foundation
to apply further good search engine optimisation advice which
will make the difference in your overall search engine ranking.
This finer area of SEO is beyond the realm of this document
and will require further investment based on individual needs.
If you are thinking of buying an
SEO software application, here are some programs that actually
work as advertised and the reason why they are recommended
by FreeSEOTutorials.com
Seo
Elite: New Seo Software! The Grand Daddy
Of All Seo Software! Get A Top 5 Google Ranking In Under
30 Days!
www.SEOElite.com |
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