Major search engines, like Google, Yahoo and MSN can account for a majority of your web site's traffic. Traffic that comes from "natural" or "organic" search engine results (non-paid) is a result of rankings, which in turn can largely be dependent on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
Search engine optimization can be broken into two components:
1. On site search engine optimization techniques - things you can do to boost your search positions within your own web site.
2. Off site search engine optimization techniques - things you do or request to have done on other web sites, such as link campaigns that benefit your web site's rankings.
For the most part, you should take care of on site SEO techniques first, because they're the easiest to implement. On site search optimization techniques allow you to build a foundation to strengthen your rankings while off site techniques are put in place.
Search engine optimization needs to be an ongoing effort that ideally starts before your web site even goes live and doesn't end until you decide to stop doing business that's related to your web site. It's not a "once and done" thing. Search engines constantly change the formulas (algorithms) they use for ranking your site, so you need to be able to keep up with those changes. Additionally, since content is so important to search engines, your content needs to be freshened and expanded on a continuing basis.
Search engine optimization needs to be an ongoing effort that ideally starts before your web site even goes live and doesn't end until you decide to stop doing business that's related to your web site. There are six important factors to include in your web site's planning stage that can best be handled ahead of time. If considered and properly addressed, these six factors will mean your site will spend less time in Google's sandbox, your rankings will get a head start, and your visitors will benefit in the process.
If you didn't consider these factors before your web site went live, you can take steps now to correct any deficiencies. However, if you take these factors into account in the very beginning of your web site's planning stages, you'll save time, aggravation and possibly considerable expense over making the necessary changes later.
Planning Search Engine Optimization for a New Web Site
Effective search engine optimization for new web sites requires advance planning. Keep in mind that Google, the largest of all search engines and the tool that will be used by the vast majority of those looking for your web site, places a great deal of importance on the age of the web site. Therefore, when sites first go live there can be an extended period of time before they are included in Google search results. Search engine optimization professionals refer to this time period as the "Google Sandbox" because, in effect, Google is sitting back to see if you're going to stick around before it decides your web site is important.
How long your web site stays in Google's sandbox depends on what steps you take before your web site ever goes live and those you take after you are up and running. Employing effective, "white hat" SEO techniques - those that won't get you in trouble with search engines later down the road, can go a long way toward getting your site indexed and in Google's results much earlier than you would have experienced had you done nothing.
There are several major elements that need to be considered in your web site strategy that will make your site search-engine friendly and help get you out of Google's sandbox earlier. Carefully considering these items before your site ever goes live will help immensely:
1. Keyword Research
2. Navigation Elements
3. Site Hierarchy/Architecture
4. Page Layout
5. URL Display
6. Cascading Style Sheets
Keyword Research
Why think about keyword research before your web site is live? Because keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization. You need to have a good understanding of your target market and the search terms that your prospective customers are likely to use to find you. Understanding which keywords will bring targeted traffic to your web site is absolutely critical.
As your site is being designed it is extremely helpful for SEO purposes to know what your selected keyword phrases will be because you can then use them in selecting your domain name and in naming folders within your web site's hierarchy. You will also want to use them as the text for links you use as navigation for your web site on every page in the site. You will use them to create the initial content or your site. You will use them again when you start engaging in off site search engine optimization - as the text for links that will be pointing go your web site.
Navigation Elements
When your web site is being designed you'll want to be sure that your web designer doesn't use images for navigation. This is probably one of the most frequent design mistakes I see every day. The design looks great, but all those links that look like text aren't text at all - they're text that's been burned into an image. Why is this a problem for search engine optimization? Search engine spiders can't read text that's burned into an image. So if your web designer comes up with a neat looking image that has the text "Green Widgets" burned into it and that image points to the Green Widgets page, the link that points to the page won't be associated with Green Widgets. Instead, have your designer use real hyperlinked text - Green Widgets, if that's your targeted keyword phrase for that page. The search engine spider sees the linked text and thinks to itself, "Gee, that page must be about Green Widgets". It doesn't get any better than that for SEO.
Image-based navigation may also include image maps. An image map is a set of instructions applied to an image that tells your browser which page to open when a specific area of the image is clicked. For example, consider a map of the USA on a web site. When a visitor clicks the state of New York, the page related to New York opens. The problem? There's no text for the search engine spider to figure out that the link for that area of the map is pointing to New York related information.
Site Hierarchy/Architecture
The hierarchy, or architecture of your web site is not only important for your visitors, it's also important for search engine optimization. If you have multiple directory levels...such as products/widgets/green/large/waterproof/manufacturer/johnson etc. search engine spiders could have difficulty navigating to the lower reaches of your web site to find Large green waterproof Johnson widgets. Will your searchers really be using this much granularity in a search for your products, or will the vast majority look for "widgets" or "waterproof widgets"? The fewer levels of directories on your web site, the better off you'll be with respect to search engine optimization. Having fewer levels can also provide the ability for visitors to get to where they want to go in fewer clicks.
While you want to keep hierarchy levels to a minimum, there's no reason to have only one level on your web site. When directories are created within your website, it's important to use your keywords in your directory (folder) names. For example, if your keyword research concludes that you will be targeting "waterproof widgets", "portable widgets" and "electric widgets", include those keywords in your web site's folder names, such as:
* products/waterproof-widgets
* products/portable-widgets
* products/electric-widgets
Files contained in the waterproof-widgets directory will have added search ranking power for the keyword term "waterproof widgets". Using a hyphen between multiple word phrases seems to get the best results in my experience. Additionally, it's easy for searchers to see immediately that the URL the search result is pointing to must be about waterproof widgets. If the two words ran together as "waterproofwidgets", it might not be so obvious to either the visitor or the search engine.
Use the same naming convention whenever files are added to your site. There's no reason an individual page can't have the same name as the directory or folder name.
Page Layout
In addition to navigation elements, your page layout needs to consider other elements that will live on your web site's pages for the best search engine optimization effect. For example, sites that use Flash are very difficult to optimize for search as there's no straight text for the search engine spiders to see. If you site will use Flash, be sure to add enough room on the page to allow for text elements - including your text-based navigation links and room for keyword text content.
You don't want a website to be nothing but a Flash presentation whose display changes when various links are clicked within the presentation. You may have seen sites like this - the URL doesn't change much. For example, www.mysite.com/products.html displays for the home page and when you click Widgets in the Flash presentation, the URL changes to www.mysite.com/products.html#. No matter which link you click, the presentation changes, but the same URL is displayed. How could anyone ever send this link to a friend and get the friend to the desired page? It doesn't work.
You're losing out on search engine optimization opportunities when you do this, too. Why? Because in addition to not being able to see the text in the Flash presentation, spiders may conclude that your site only contains one page. Not a good thing, by any means.
Always make sure your web designer makes your pages flexible enough so you can include the text you want to include on the page. Some designers recommend scrolling, and minimizing scrolling is always a good idea. But, what often happens, is that it's not possible to get all the text you want to on the page without fouling up the pages design because the designer only allotted limited space for your text.
URL Display
Complicated URLs can also be complicated to search engine spiders. While there are workarounds you can use later if your site is having the problem, it's easier and less costly to consider the issue before the site ever goes live. Dynamic URLs change depending on whatever parameters - or variables - the web developer has decided to use. Dynamic URLs, especially those that contain session IDs can be problematic for search engine spiders. They're also problematic for your visitors.
The sites that most commonly use dynamic URLs and session IDs are ecommerce stores. Here are two examples would be:
http://www.mywebstore.com/product.asp?pf_id811
http://www.mywebstore.com/closeup.asp?cid=50&pid=101&offset=0
While search engine spiders are getting better at navigating dynamic URLs, the first example is not a problem at all, at least for the majority of search engines. Some argue that a URL that contains both a question mark (?) and an ampersand (&) is not going to get indexed, but I've seen otherwise in actual practice. In any event, your web developers need to know that you are concerned so they can implement the necessary steps to make your web site URLs more search engine friendly.
As far as visitors are concerned, if I emailed these URLs - especially the second one - to a friend who is not computer savvy and whose email didn't create a link from the URL, this unsavvy friend would probably try to manually type the URL into their web browser. How many times do you think it would take to get the second URL correctly typed into the browser?
In both cases, you can see that the URL doesn't include the name or any other information about the product that is the target of the link.
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading style sheets are essentially text files that browsers can access in order to display text or other elements on a web page. Within the cascading style sheet text file is a set of instructions. There a few reasons why you want to use cascading style sheets (CSS) on your web site:
1. They make maintenance easier. If you want to change your paragraph text from Arial to Verdana font, you make one change in the CSS file and all pages on your web site are updated instantly.
2. They allow for positioning of page elements. Since search engine spiders like to find your content as soon as possible, a CSS can be used to place your content at the beginning of the page code while it's actually displayed somewhere else on the page in a browser.
3. You can use any settings you want to for headings. Search engines love H1 tags - the highest level of headline in an HTML page. The default H1 style is usually gargantuan and ugly. Using CSS you can set the font size, style, line height, color, etc. of your H1 tags to anything you like. That way you can incorporate more H1 headings within all of your web site's pages.
6 SEO Factors to Consider in Web Site Planning - To learn more about this author, visit Randy Duermyer's Website.
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Randy Duermyer
(Visit Randy's Website)
Randy Duermyer operates a search engine optimization
(SEO)firm - HelpDo
cuments.com that provides services to
small and medium-sized businesses. He has
written hundreds of articles that have
been published on the web and has helped
his clients obtain top search engine
rankings and dramatically increase their
online sales. Randy holds a B.A. in
Business & Economics from Rutgers
University and is a Certified Internet
Webmaster (CIW). He is a senior member of
the Society for Technical Communications,
a member of the International Webmasters'
Association, the HTML Writers Guild, the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) and the Web Video
Marketing Council. He is also the
editor/content producer for About.com's Home
Business/a> web site.
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