How to Design a Search Engine Friendly Website
How to Design a Search Engine Friendly Website
Many web site designers don't design their sites for the search engines. This is a huge mistake because they miss out on attracting lots of free traffic. The reason is most website designers are just that – designers. Search Engine Optimization is a completely separate discipline. Your beautifully designed web site may have cost you thousands of dollars but it still needs to attract visitors to be profitable.
Here are 12 highly effective strategies for designing a search engine friendly web site:
1. Research highly targeted keywords - do this even before you begin designing otherwise you may have to go back and clean up some of your web site design. Use a keyword research tool like one of the following:
- http://www.wordtracker.com
- http://www.google.com/insights/search/#
- https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
to research the most popular keywords that pertain to the subject matter of
your web site. These tools will show how many people have searched for that particular keyword and help you come up with related keywords.
2. Create a list of approximately 100 keywords or keyword phrases that you can include within your web pages. After having completed the above research, you should have found the keywords that were searched on most frequently, but only
produce a small number of competing web sites.
3. Write a paragraph of 250 - 500 words of text for the top of each web page. Weave your keywords within this text being careful not have them so close together that your copy reads strange for your visitors. Aim to please the search engines as well as your web site visitors.
4. Optimize Meta tags - the most significant Meta tags are the title and description Meta tags. The keyword Meta tag has lost its effectiveness due to people spamming it; however include it anyway as some search engines still use
it. Include your keywords within each of these Meta tags. The title Meta tag should be a short sentence about the purpose of your site. In your description Meta tag, write a sentence on the greatest benefit of your site. Your keyword
Meta tag should include the most frequently used keywords contained within your web page.
5. Include Heading Tags - these can range from H1-H6 most designers will only use H1-H3. These tags separate each section of your web page with subheadings. The H1 tag contains the largest font and is the most significant. Within the descriptive text of these header tags you should include the keyword phrases placed in the same order as your keyword phrases that are within your keyword Meta tags.
6. Optimize images using the alt tag - write a short description for the alt tag of your image. The alt tag has 2 purposes:
a) Visitors can read the description if they can't see the image.
b) Search engines only spider text (not images), therefore this could help your site's rankings.
7. Reduce image size - too many images or very large images on your web page will slow down the loading time of your web site. Make sure your images have a resolution of 72ppi. Slice large images into smaller pieces with your graphics
editor.
8. Find incoming links (backward links) - web sites that link to yours raise your link popularity. Search for web sites that are compatible with yours and have a PR 4 or more to do a link exchange. Write optimized articles and include
them on your web site. This means your site has a greater chance of being indexed quickly as well as getting a boost in its rankings.
Create absolute links (i.e. http://www.domainname.com) from all your internal pages to your home page. This will increase the number of links pointing to your home page.
9. Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to implement a clean design throughout your web site. This will reduce the time to implement a consistent text (or layout) style for your web site. It will also enable you to easily update your whole site should you wish to make any future changes.
10. Place any script code into external files - when using JavaScript (i.e. for swapping images on your navigation bar) it creates a lot of code between the header tags, pushing down the text that search, engines would spider first.
Placing the script code in an external file reduces the code to just one line.
11. Insert the DOC TYPE tag at the top of every web page. A DOCTYPE ( "document type declaration") informs the validator which version of HTML you're using for your web pages. DOCTYPEs are a key component of compliant web pages: your
markup and CSS won't validate without them. i.e.
[!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"]
DOCTYPES are also essential to the proper rendering and
functioning of web documents in compliant browsers like
Mozilla, IE5/Mac, and IE6/Win.
12. Write clean html code - web site editors often write extra code. This can increase the loading time of your web pages. Check your html code by running it through an html validator (http://validator.w3.org/).
Once you implement these items you will have a good base to start with. In reality this is just a beginning of a long journey and don't be afraid to ask for help.
How to Design a Search Engine Friendly Website - To learn more about this author, visit Max Entin's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
HOW TO DESIGN A SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY WEB SITE
Many web site designers don't design their sites for the search engines. This is a huge mistake because they miss out on attracting lots of free traffic. The reason is most website designers are just that – designers. Search Engine Optimization is a completely separate discipline. Your beautifully designed web site may have cost you thousands of dollars but it still needs to attract visitors to be profitable.
Here are 12 highly effective strategies for designing a search engine friendly web site:
1. Research highly targeted keywords - do this even before you begin designing otherwise you may have to go back and clean up some of your web site design. Use a keyword research tool like one of the following:
- http://www.wordtracker.com
- http://www.google.com/insights/search/#
- https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
to research the most popular keywords that pertain to the subject matter of
your web site. These tools will show how many people have searched for that particular keyword and help you come up with related keywords.
2. Create a list of approximately 100 keywords or keyword phrases that you can include within your web pages. After having completed the above research, you should have found the keywords that were searched on most frequently, but only
produce a small number of competing web sites.
3. Write a paragraph of 250 - 500 words of text for the top of each web page. Weave your keywords within this text being careful not have them so close together that your copy reads strange for your visitors. Aim to please the search engines as well as your web site visitors.
4. Optimize Meta tags - the most significant Meta tags are the title and description Meta tags. The keyword Meta tag has lost its effectiveness due to people spamming it; however include it anyway as some search engines still use
it. Include your keywords within each of these Meta tags. The title Meta tag should be a short sentence about the purpose of your site. In your description Meta tag, write a sentence on the greatest benefit of your site. Your keyword
Meta tag should include the most frequently used keywords contained within your web page.
5. Include Heading Tags - these can range from H1-H6 most designers will only use H1-H3. These tags separate each section of your web page with subheadings. The H1 tag contains the largest font and is the most significant. Within the descriptive text of these header tags you should include the keyword phrases placed in the same order as your keyword phrases that are within your keyword Meta tags.
6. Optimize images using the alt tag - write a short description for the alt tag of your image. The alt tag has 2 purposes:
a) Visitors can read the description if they can't see the image.
b) Search engines only spider text (not images), therefore this could help your site's rankings.
7. Reduce image size - too many images or very large images on your web page will slow down the loading time of your web site. Make sure your images have a resolution of 72ppi. Slice large images into smaller pieces with your graphics
editor.
8. Find incoming links (backward links) - web sites that link to yours raise your link popularity. Search for web sites that are compatible with yours and have a PR 4 or more to do a link exchange. Write optimized articles and include
them on your web site. This means your site has a greater chance of being indexed quickly as well as getting a boost in its rankings.
Create absolute links (i.e. http://www.domainname.com) from all your internal pages to your home page. This will increase the number of links pointing to your home page.
9. Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to implement a clean design throughout your web site. This will reduce the time to implement a consistent text (or layout) style for your web site. It will also enable you to easily update your whole site should you wish to make any future changes.
10. Place any script code into external files - when using JavaScript (i.e. for swapping images on your navigation bar) it creates a lot of code between the header tags, pushing down the text that search, engines would spider first.
Placing the script code in an external file reduces the code to just one line.
11. Insert the DOC TYPE tag at the top of every web page. A DOCTYPE ( "document type declaration") informs the validator which version of HTML you're using for your web pages. DOCTYPEs are a key component of compliant web pages: your
markup and CSS won't validate without them. i.e.
[!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"]
DOCTYPES are also essential to the proper rendering and
functioning of web documents in compliant browsers like
Mozilla, IE5/Mac, and IE6/Win.
12. Write clean html code - web site editors often write extra code. This can increase the loading time of your web pages. Check your html code by running it through an html validator (http://validator.w3.org/).
Once you implement these items you will have a good base to start with. In reality this is just a beginning of a long journey and don't be afraid to ask for help.
How to Design a Search Engine Friendly Website - To learn more about this author, visit Max Entin's Website.
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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