Most website owners focus on creating a website first and then optimizing it later. You might as well open your wallet, open a window, and let the bills fly. If you don’t incorporate optimization into elements of the design you’re going to end up spending more money in the long run.
It is a challenge to create a site that is both appealing to users and search engine friendly, but the following tips will get you started.
Here is a simple formula to be remember:
If you’re ready to get started here are a few tips:
Tip #1: Adapt to Changing SEO Strategies
The Internet and SEO are constantly changing. Constantly. If you’re basing your SEO strategies on hype, then you need to adopt tested SEO methods that work otherwise your efforts will be wasted.
Tip #2: Code Matters
Your site’s code directly affects its spiderability. Excessive scripts, over edited templates, error ridden code, and unnecessary tags are just a few of the mistakes that can lead to errors in crawling a site. Cleaner code and less of it will put more emphasis on your content and keywords. Make sure to use semantic code, so that search engine spiders can read and access your page easily. You can check your pages for errors using the W3C Markup Validator.
Tip #3: Use Meta Title Tags
Make sure the Meta Title tag of the page matches the content. This sounds obvious, but Titles are often neglected either by using duplicate Titles, stuffing it with keywords, or having little relevance to page content. The Title is going to help search engine crawlers determine the page content as well as help attract visitors in SERPs.
Tip #4: Don’t Cramp out the Content
Content sections are very important. Make sure the page layout allows enough space for content in the main body area. Some sites go heavy on images and ads and squeeze text into confinded boxes. That’s a mistake. Content sections contain the relevant information your visitors and search engines want, as well as links that tend to be given a higher value.
Tip #5: Research Page Names
When naming pages (e.g. www.yourdomain.com/pagename.htm) do you research the competition and keywords, or just name pages on the fly? For example, a realtor might have a new listing for a home at 123 Street Name, City, State, Zip Code and just name it “123streetname.htm.” A better choice would be “listingtype/streetname-city-state-zipcode.htm.” Remember, once a page goes live, it is indexed, ranked, linked, bookmarked, etc. It’s much easier to perform research and select optimized names before a site goes live, rather than change the name and perform a redirect afterwards.
Tip #6: Navigation and Structure
This is one of the important tips to remember. When designing your site’s navigation, you want to create a clear hierarchy of pages (most important pages/categories first, second most important pages/categories next, etc.). Navigation serves multiple purposes: making the site easy to navigate, leading the potential buyer to converting pages, telling search engines which pages to give the most PageRank to. Research site structure before you start creating the site, not while you’re creating it. Also, don’t forget to leave room to grow! Adding a new section shouldn’t lead to a reconfiguration of your entire navigation path/menus.
Tip #7: Internal Links / Anchor Tags
Links help search engines understand the subject matter of a web page. They also help search engines crawl your site and navigate your pages. Make sure each of your most important pages is reachable by at least one link. Limit links to less than 100 per page. The anchor text, or words used when linking, should be well researched and carefully used. Using the phrases; “click here” or “email us” are completely ineffective–unless your goal is to rank high for “click here.” A better approach would be to use phrases like “Keyword tips,” “Read more about keyword,” or “learn more about keyword.” Vary the anchor text used and be sure to add relevant links to the main content areas. These links will be more useful, but only if the pages contain useful and relevant content.
Tip #8: Use Appropriate Keywords and Phrases
There should be a strong connection between your chosen keywords and page content. Page relevance might seem obvious, but too often Webmasters write content around keywords, instead of the other way around. Make sure the keywords and phrases you add not only convert, but are relevant to the page. Be sure not to use the same keywords on all of your pages in hopes of dominating rankings. Most of the search engines consider this a spam tactic and won’t index all of your pages. Well structured content with properly used and relevant keywords should be your goal.
Tip #9: Update and Expand Your Content
Don’t let the cob webs form on your site. Updating and expanding content is a task that is necessary to your site’s success. Try to add a page per day, or every week at the very least. If you want to rank well, or hang onto your rank, it is vital that your site is also reliable and consistent.
Tip #10: Avoid Using Flash
Flash isn’t the SEO nightmare it was in earlier days. The fact that it can now be crawled is quite helpful, but you still want to make sure it’s used in moderation and not on your most important pages. Google has some additional helpful tips on design guidelines and what to avoid.
Tip #11: Add Alt Tags / Title Tags
The purpose of the Alt Tag is to provide a text substitute of an image for the benefit of visitors with the graphics disabled, or using software that reads a web page. For that reason, you do not want to keyword stuff or use irrelevant keywords! However, you’ll want to assign keyword rich and appropriate labels to images within your web pages. This will also help with the optimization process.
Example of the image Alt tag in html code:
img src=”images/seo-updates.jpg” alt=”Alt Tags Display” width=”25″ height=”66″ align=”center”
If you want an advantage over your competition, you must marry web design and optimization. Start by using clean code that is search engine friendly. Research link, page, file, and section names. Make the page appealing and easy to use, but also structure it in a way that leads the user to best converting pages. With a properly structured website and judicious use of SEO, you can give your site a real advantage of your competitors.
Evan Mullins says
Thanks Jerry, some real nice tips here. Nice to hear some reminders of the things I know I should be doing all along. Taking a minute or two to think about the SEO when building a site will have HUGE returns! When you’re right, you’re right.
Rick says
Jerry,
You forgot a couple of circles in your diagram. There is the what the marketing department wants circle and the what the ceo wants circle. ;)
Dorian Chananie says
All experienced Flash CS3 designers are expected to be expert at using Flash together with some reasonable knowledge of ActionScript. While fair proficiency at drawing, masking and animation using Flash is vital for a good flash site design, knowledge of ActionScript is important to accomplish even the most basic functions in Flash while handling a movie clip.
Barton Koroch the Auto Insurance Guy says
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch! :)
Jerry West says
Glad you found it an excellent read Barton. Did you have Spam for lunch? Because that’s what you fed my blog. Oh, I took out your link. That sucks for you.
Goalranks says
awesome article! you make it step by step and very clear in seo. I’ll try all of what you said and I’ll come back to let you know the result. thx!
Ben Beattie says
That is so true, keep me up to date. Great Blog by the way :-)
Ted Shawber says
I can see that you are quite an expert in your field! I am beginning a new website soon, and your information will be very useful to me.. Thanks for all of your help and I’m wishing you all the success in all you do.
Stave says
Would it be possible to get permission to use some of your entries on forums with a link back?
[Blocked by CFC] Jerry West says
Of course Steve, a link back to our blog is always appreciated.