The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

How to get indexed and well-ranked by search engines without spending thousands on a professional SEO service.

Search engines use impartial algorithms to decide which webpages should be listed in response to searches for a particular word or phrase, and they are getting more sophisticated every day.

Their primary focus, their main job, if you will, is to find the web page that most closely matches the search phrase or word entered. Their goal is to do a good job for their customer (the searcher) so they will come back the next time they need to find something.

It makes sense, then, that the best way to get a good ranking for your website is to do the best you can to fill your web pages with content that people want, and do it in a way that makes it easier for search engines to do their jobs.

Fortunately, designing a website (or editing an existing website) for better SEO is a fairly simple & straight-forward process. It takes time & effort, but it's important and should not be ignored.

Keep the following tips in mind as you design and maintain your website, and you'll go a long way towards getting a favorable notice from the search engines.

Domain Names - If you haven't bought your domain yet, then try to get one with your main keyword in it, like dogtoys.com if you are selling dog toys. It helps a lot with ranking when the domain name actually contains the keyword being searched.

Also, since the price has come down so much in the last few years, it is a good idea to also get dogtoys.net, dog-toys.com, dogtoys.info, etc. and pointing these domains to your main domain.

Try to get the dot-com extension whenever possible. A .net, .org, .info etc. will get spidered and indexed, but if you can get a .com for your chosen name you'd be better off, as this extension is the original and carries an air of legitimacy with it.

Keyword Use - Once you have decided which keywords to concentrate on, make a list of all the possible variations, and a few phrases that each one can be used in. Use that list as a starting point when you are writing the content for the page.

Write your headlines, sentences and paragraphs in a natural, conversational manner. Don't try to force the keywords into places that they wouldn't naturally occur. I have found that if I just pretend that I'm talking to a friend then the sentences just seem to flow out and it all feels much more natural.

Use your keywords in the file names, link anchor text and in image descriptions. Aim for about five percent of the words on a page to be your top keywords.

Headlines - Use the header tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.), SE's rate the header tag content as more important than the other text on the page. Make sure that the headlines contain your keywords.

The last thing you want to do for headlines is to use images or the old-standard <font> tags for formatting. It is much more effective to use the header tags and CSS to make them appear the way you want them to.

META Tags - particularly the <title> and <description> tags. Give every page unique titles and descriptions, with good keywords that apply to the content of that page. The word count for titles should be nine or ten, max, and the description word count should not be more than 20.

Images - Always use the alt="description" in the image tag. If it is a link, the description is the link destination. If the image is a product, the description should describe a product benefit, and should contain some variation of the keyword that the page is optimized for.

Only use an image if it is actually relevant to your content. Remember that spiders can't see the image, some people surf with images turned off, and browsers for the vision impaired read the descriptions out loud.

Use CSS - External Cascading Style Sheets reduce page size and make the page content more 'visible' to the search spiders. The other benefit, of course, is to make your design easier to manage.

Use Standard HTML - Avoid using a WYSIWYG editor. Even the best of them add unnecessary tags and codes that make pages larger and harder for a spider to crawl. Some even add codes that can't even be read by spiders, which can make them skip the whole page and not follow your links to other pages.

If you do use a WYSIWYG editor (or a website template that someone else designed), go through the code with a fine-tooth comb and make double-damn sure to remove all unnecessary tags, close all open tags and put in the META tags that you need.

Validate Your HTML and Use A Document Type Definition. - HTML Validation is simply making sure that your pages use the correct DTD and that there are no errors in your code. You can validate your HTML for free and learn more about DTDs at www.w3.org.

Don't Use Frames - Some search engine spiders can't even index pages with frames, others have problems figuring out what goes where and often miss important content completely.

Use Spider-Friendly Layouts - In most HTML page code, a large, complex menu on the left is spidered before the page content. Some spiders only index the first 500 or 800 words in a page, so if the menu is too large, your content may not even be indexed...

There are a few ways to get around that: You can change the layout so your menu is on the right, you can put the menu in with a Javascript (which the spiders don't read) or you can design the layout so that the left column is actually after the content in the code. See the demo for a 3-column spider-friendly layout.

Avoid Overly-complex Table Layouts. Tables are great for some things, but using them for a complex layout can confuse the spiders and may result in incomplete indexing. You can reduce that risk by sticking to simpler layouts and stacking your tables rather than nesting them within each other. See the demo for table stacking.

Don't Use Flash For Your Design - Flash is OK for some things: Games, little demo-movies, some types of links with a mouse-over effect... But not for the entire site design.

For one thing, spiders cannot even read the Flash content. For another, it is really surfer-UNfriendly.

Text Links Are Better Than Image Links - You should always use text links when linking to important content on your website. Some spiders can follow image links, but text links are universal.

Check Your Links - Make sure that all of your links are working properly. One tiny error in the code can break a link and the spider won't follow it. Use the free Xenu's Link Sleuth to find broken links.

Your Website Map - A good sitemap is essential to getting all of your pages indexed by the search engines. A link from the home page to the sitemap, and links from there to every major page will give the spiders an easy to follow trail.

If your website has over a hundred pages, you may want to split your sitemap into sub-sections. Most spiders will only follow a certain number of links from a page before it moves on to the next, and if a sitemap has 250 links, some pages may never be indexed. See Improve Your SEO With a Better Site Map for more info.

One more thing:

Getting traffic from the search engines is just one step in this game of webmastering... but all the work you put into design and content is wasted if the search engines won't list your website...

Don't Try To Cheat or Trick the Search Engines! The following sneaky tactics can backfire on you and get your domain banned
* Keyword stuffing. Use your keywords in a natural manner.
* Unsuitable keywords. Use keywords appropriately.
* Invisible text. Text the same color as the background.
* "Cloaking". Different pages for visitors and spiders.... AKA:
* "Doorway pages". Pages full of keywords, for spiders only.
* Linking to "Link Farms". Creates guilt by association.

The main point to remember is that a search engines job is to index content. If your pages have little content, or if the search engines can't (or won't) index your content, you won't get a good ranking.

But if your pages have good content, and they are search spider friendly, then a good SERP (search engine results page) listing is within reach, no matter what your budget.

To Your Success!
Tim

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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