| When you design a website, it's easy to focus | | | | will tend to make your page appear more |
| on what your visitors are going to see. What | | | | focused, although you should be careful not |
| you have to realise, though, is that you're | | | | to insert navigation links this way if you |
| going to have another kind of visitor with a | | | | want the search engines to follow them. |
| completely different agenda: they're not | | | | |
| going to be looking at your pretty logo and | | | | Use Meta Tags. |
| they're not going to be passing judgement on | | | | |
| your background colour. What they're looking | | | | Yes, meta tags are out of fashion, and search |
| for is the content and structure of your | | | | engines pay no attention to them any more |
| page. | | | | when it comes to ranking your site, but |
| | | | they're still important in one way: the meta |
| They're the search engine spiders, and they | | | | description tag is still often used to decide |
| are in control of probably the largest | | | | what text search engines' users see when they |
| section of your traffic. You need to please | | | | find your site in their results! This can be |
| these spiders if you want your site to be | | | | just as important as the ranking itself - |
| successful. Here's how. | | | | write something here that will look useful to |
| | | | the searcher, and you're more likely to get |
| Make Your Structure Clear. | | | | them to click-through. Don't forget that, |
| | | | while search engines are just machines and |
| Resist the temptation to lay your page out in | | | | algorithms, the end result of it all does |
| non-standard ways: you want it to be very | | | | involve a human decision: to click, or not to |
| clear to the search engine where the | | | | click? |
| navigation is, where the content is, and | | | | |
| where the headings are. As a rule, put | | | | Avoid Splash Pages. |
| navigation first in your page. Always use the | | | | |
| heading tags (h1, h2, etc.) for headings and | | | | You might think it's a great idea to have a |
| sub-headings. | | | | 'splash' page displaying a full-page version |
| | | | of your logo (or an ad) to every user who |
| Avoid using generic span and div tags and | | | | arrives at your site, but search engines |
| only making things clear to the user through | | | | really hate that. Using this trick will get |
| CSS font sizes: instead, use every 'semantic' | | | | you ranked far lower than you would usually |
| HTML tag that applies to your content. If | | | | be, so you should avoid it - it's annoying to |
| you're quoting someone, use the blockquote | | | | visitors anyway. |
| tag; if you're posting program code, use the | | | | |
| code tag. Search engines love this. | | | | Include Alt Tags. |
| | | | |
| Keep Keywords Consistent. | | | | Any time you use a graphic, include alt text |
| | | | for it - especially if there is text in the |
| It's not usually worth deliberately | | | | graphic. Remember that, as far as search |
| saturating your content with keywords in hope | | | | engines are concerned, all your graphics |
| of a higher search ranking - the engines have | | | | might as well just be big black boxes. Test |
| pretty much wised up to this tactic - but do | | | | by removing all your graphics and seeing if |
| make sure that your keywords appear | | | | your content remains relatively intact. If it |
| consistently when they occur naturally. For | | | | doesn't, then you'll be turning search |
| example, for these articles, I have stuck | | | | engines away. |
| with 'website' throughout, as suddenly | | | | |
| writing 'web site' instead would bring down | | | | Finally, Write Great Content. |
| my rankings. | | | | |
| | | | The key with modern search engines (and, at |
| HTML and Javascript. | | | | the same time, the thing you have least |
| | | | control over) is how many people decide to |
| It's worth noting that search engines read | | | | link to your page from their page. How can |
| HTML, but they don't, in general, read | | | | you make more people link to you? Make your |
| Javascript. That means that using Javascript | | | | content useful. Make it something they'll |
| to insert text into your page is a bad idea | | | | want to quote on their blogs. Content is more |
| if you want search engines to see the text. | | | | King than it's ever been, and the best way to |
| On the other hand, you might want to have | | | | design for search engines is to make your |
| just the text in HTML and insert all the | | | | content really stand out. |
| other parts of the page with Javascript: this | | | | |