Services
|
Designing a
Search Engine Friendly Website
by: Wendy Suto
Ultimately, the Internet users are the people who are going
to purchase your products and services, not the search
engines. This is typically where the problem initially lies,
because online visitors will not be able to find your
Website if it is not constructed with both the visitors and
the search engines in mind. Just because you may have spent
thousands of dollars to have a beautifully designed Website,
does not mean it will automatically generate lots of online
visitors and become profitable.
In other words, a search engine friendly Website is first
and foremost user-friendly, designed and written for your
human visitors first (primary audience). Then the site can
be tweaked so that is can be easily indexed by the search
engines (secondary audience). The phrase "search engine
friendly Website” means that the Website programmer is
following the rules set forth by the search engines, in
order for high keyword rankings to be achieved.
Here are a few highly effective strategies for designing a
search engine friendly Website:
1. Keep HTML code and the Website simple and easy to
navigate.
Try to create Websites that are basic .html or .htm page
files, without using any type of JavaScript or other dynamic
design styles. Javascript creates a lot of code between the
header tags, pushing down the text that search engines would
crawl first. Placing the script code in an external file
reduces the code to just one line.
2. Reduce image sizes.
Too many images or very large images on your Web page will
slow down the loading time of your Website. Make sure your
images have a resolution of 72dpi. You can also slice large
images into smaller pieces with your graphics editor.
3. Allow search engine spiders to find important Web pages
from any page.
Place text links of your main Web pages at the bottom of
each of your Web pages, so spiders can find your inside
pages. Create a Site Map page with all of your Web pages
listed on one page, and link to it from your homepage. You
can also create a Google Sitemap .xml file using the Google
Sitemaps program, so Google’s crawlers can find all of your
Web pages easier.
4. Try not to use cookies on your Website.
Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or
arguments that track their path through the site. These
techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior,
but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using
these techniques may result in your Website not being
indexed at all. Another thing that will stop search engines
from finding the sub pages of your site is requiring
cookies. Sure cookies and/or session ids may be necessary to
track visitor activity, but you can make an exception for
search engines. Search engine crawlers do not like cookies.
Don't require them to accept them or they will simply leave.
5. Do not use frames anywhere on your Website.
This is an HTML tag created that allows designers to display
two or more Web pages at the same time. The perception is
that frames can improve Website navigation, but they are
browser-dependant and do not create search engine friendly
Websites. Most search engines do not index framed pages.
Frames only allow search engine crawlers to see 1 Webpage,
when there is actually 20 Web pages on a site.
6. Do not place your Website entirely in flash.
Search engines cannot “read” Websites built as Flash movies.
They cannot read text in a movie file, and also only
recognize a 20-page Website for example as only 1 Web page.
It is best to create separate HTML page files for your
photos, graphics and content, in order to have a search
engine friendly Website.
7. Write content on each Web page.
Write a summary paragraph of at least 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 Website
visitors.
8. Do not create doorway pages.
Doorway, or gateway pages, means a "fake" Web page is
created to rank well for a selected keyword term and
redirects Website visitors to another, "actual" page on a
company’s Website. Doorway pages are those generated
automatically from a template and is considered spam and
penalized by the majority of search engines.
About The Author
Wendy Suto is president and CEO of
Search Circus, Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio. She keeps
pace with the latest optimization, link building and
article submission tactics. As a certified search
engine optimization consultant, she teaches SEO
classes throughout Cleveland, Ohio.
http://www.searchcircus.com
|
|
