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Basics of Search Engine Optimization part 2

Written by: Mark FitzGibbon

Article Overview: In "Basics of Search Engine Optimization part 1" we looked at how search engines gather information from web sites and highlighted some common mistakes made by web designers in their build methods. In Part 2 we'll look at on-page tips for keyword placement.

Basics of Search Engine Optimization part 2

One of the most important - if not THE most important - part of any web page is actually selection of that page's keyword(s), which might be your product or service (to use the previous analogy, you might be trying to sell 'Green Widgets', by way of illustration). However, having said that, I'm going to leave selection of keywords to a later tutorial because I want to continue concentrating on page layout and build method for the moment (there's a lot to say!).

So, we'll pretend the page we're building is trying to sell (rank for) green widgets. What we need to do is make the keywords 'green widgets' sit high up in the page code, because search engines assume text which is right at the start of the code is really important for that page (particularly if 'styled' in a certain way, but we'll come onto that later).

As well as having the words 'green widgets' first, or nearly first, in the VISIBLE page layout (and remember, as we said in Part 1, it needs to be 'real' text rather than a graphic/scan/JPEG of text), we need to have it high in the HTML code which is the part only the search engine sees ("view source" on your web browser to see this). So, for instance, if you have any Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), reference them as an externally linked CSS file rather than embedding the CSS code in the 'HEAD' part of the HTML. It's actually VERY simple to do although I won't get into the technicalities here as we'll go off topic. Similarly, if you have any scripts in the 'Head' section of the code, try to link to them externally rather than keeping them in the 'head' section. Again, simple to do but not in the scope of this tutorial. These might include the javascript for rollover buttons, e-commerce functionality, or one of many things. Why do we want to reference them to external links rather than embed them in the 'head' section's code? Easy - to make our keywords 'green widgets' nearer to the start of the code - because search engines will think the words are more important (for ranking purposes) if they're close to the top of the visible and invisible (to us) page/code.

For the same reason, a site should not have reams and reams of table cells (e.g. containing loads of complicated graphics) at the start of the 'BODY' section of the code. If you do have lots of graphics before your text starts, see if you can combine it into one 'lump' (one table cell). The file size will be larger but these days, with broadband etc., this is not such an issue as it used to be because load speeds are also not such an issue nowadays, at least for the vast majority of broadband-enabled web surfers.

One very nice tip for a navigation system is, instead of having lots of cells containing rollover graphics for individual buttons, have all the buttons as one great long 'slab' graphic and break it down into clickable areas using an 'image map'. Why? Because having it as one slab means less code. The brilliant thing about an image map is that the code for it goes at the END of the 'body' section! So, 'green widgets' moves ever closer to the top - which the search engines will love. Of course, I should say that if the navigation system is 'graphical' in this way (i.e. not proper text), make sure you also have a secondary navigation system which IS proper text hyperlinks - somewhere else on the page... and on the graphical navigation incorporate 'ALT' tags (those pop-up text boxes which appear when you hover over a graphic, if using Internet Explorer) too.

So, having effectively removed loads and loads of code from both the 'head' section and the start of the 'body' section of the page, now think in terms of a main heading, a sub-heading and even a sub-sub-heading if you need one. In all cases, try and use the phrase 'green widgets' once (only once in each, near the start of each). The main heading should be h1 style (a.k.a. Heading 1), the sub-heading should be h2 (a.k.a. Heading 2) and the sub-sub-heading should be h3 (a.k.a. Heading 3). Keywords within those particular text styles (or 'tags' ) are deemed to be very important to search engines. After them, you can start your main body text (the styles for which can be called anything you like). Again, include the words 'green widgets' very near the start of the body text and try not to repeat it more than one more time within that tag - and if you do make sure it's near the start. What you're effectively doing is raising your keyword prominence. Think about it for a moment: if your main keyword is at the start of a tag and not repeated again, its prominence will be 100%. If you add it again at the end, you have suddenly reduced its prominence by a staggering 50% — which is bad.

You need to also approach the 'META' tags (which go in the 'head' section of the HTML code) in the same way, i.e. have 'green widgets' ideally first in each tag and not repeated at all. The 'title' meta tag should always be the first meta tag after the opening 'head' tag, by the way. The order of the others ('description' and 'keywords') is not so important.

'Alt' tags should also be approached in the same way. Make sure the keyword is first (or nearly first) in the first 'alt' tag and don't repeat it again. Of course with all of these you can (and should) add other words after the keywords! I very nearly thought that went without saying!

We'll leave it there for this tutorial as there is lots to absorb in the above. Please note that this has been a general overview and is not fully comprehensive! There is more to consider but at time of writing it's twenty past midnight so I'm going to leave it there!! In Part 3 I think we should address the SEO value of text hyperlinks.

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Article Tags: analogy, cascading style sheets, commerce functionality, css code, css reference, illustration, many things, page layout, rollover buttons, scope, scripts, search engine, search engines, technicalities, view source, web page, widgets



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