There are many ways that you can improve the probability of
achieving higher search engine rankings.
The most effective way is to consider how search engines rank
your pages - during the 'planning' phase of developing your site.
Most issues that adversely effect search engine ranking are
in-built during the design, and are more difficult to remove
once the design is complete. Consider that most web design
contracts are fulfilled when a site is posted to the web, looks
as intended and is functional. What happens to your site beyond
this is not the concern of the people who designed your site,
their work is complete. So if you are fortunate enough to be at
the 'specification' stage of planning a web site, there are a
few simple things that you should do.
Ask the designer specifically what steps he or she will
implement to ensure your site is 'search engine friendly'. If
you pre-arm yourself with a little knowledge of the subject, you
can easily gauge from their reaction just how well your site
will be prepared for search engine submissions. You are not
looking for guaranteed top 10 positions at this stage. You are
looking for some evidence that the designer understands the
basics of how search engines work, how they 'crawl' your pages,
and what they do with the information that they retrieve. If
their reaction does not instill confidence that your site will
be designed with consideration towards the search engines, you
have one of two choices:- go elsewhere and seek the services of
a company who can demonstrate reasonable knowledge of the
subject, or take it upon yourself to lay down the basic
guidelines to your designer.
The basic guidelines are:
Include all the important Meta tags on each page. Keywords,
Description and Title tags should be included as a minimum, and
each should be set to focus on the content of the specific page,
remaining where possible within the 'theme' of the site. Add
'robot instruction' tags indicating which pages should be
indexed by the search engines and which should not. If you have
pages that detract from the overall theme of the site, use the
'noindex', 'nofollow' tags. Avoid using 'Meta Refresh' tags that
are set to automatically direct the viewer to another page. If
you must use 'refresh' set the time to a minimum of 15 seconds.
Design a navigation structure that allows search engines to
crawl the important content pages from the home page. This can
be done easily using transparent image files and setting them as
hyperlinks. Remember that using Java, Flash software or 'Frames'
to facilitate navigation, can often present a 'closed door' to
search engines, preventing key areas of your site from being
indexed. Use the alt-attribute and name images descriptively.
Some search engines read the alt text and it can help, though
marginally. Name pages using keywords. Instead of 'page2.html'
use 'american-ginseng.html', if your site is about herbal
products! If your site uses 'Frames' there are important
techniques that go beyond the scope of this report. Many search
engines cannot navigate through the Framed section of a site,
unless the Frames are prepared in a specific way. As a minimum,
ensure your designer includes a detailed description about your
business, products or services on the 'noframes' page, and ask
them to research more specific information about Frames and
search engines. If the site is designed using dynamic content
pages as with ASP, consider designing additional pages that use
static HTML. Having an 'about us' page in HTML is always a good
strategy when using dynamic content pages or 'active server
pages'.
These are some of the basics to consider when designing a web
site.
Consider also, 'who will submit your site to the search engines
once the design is complete?'. Some of the design companies
offering this service use 'bulk submission' software, which in
many cases can be ineffective. We recommend that the first time
you submit your site to the 'leading' search engines you do it
manually. Take the time to follow the instructions carefully. On
directory sites like Yahoo and the Open Directory, you should
only submit your site one time, so get it right.
The last point is 'Hosting'. If you are serious about your web
business, try to avoid free-host sites. Most of them use
redirection scripts that some of the search engines cannot
follow. If you are considering a 'Mall' site, or any site that
is 'template' based, find out the constraints that they impose
on the information you can post to the site. Many will allow
only basic text, product and image loading to the site, and may
not allow you to load 'optimized' HTML pages.
Having a web site is all about 'exposure', and search engines
provide the most effective vehicle for delivering your site to
the masses. On average, businesses spend around $1500 on
improving search engine rankings, usually following a period of
being 'lost in the wilderness' of the Internet. In many cases,
careful design is all that is required, and it need only add
around $200 to the initial design cost of the web site.
If your site is already online then the above techniques can
still be applied retrospectively, though making changes is more
difficult than getting it right the first time.
About the author:
Carl Hruza - works as an Independent Consultant, and operates
the web business TopWebPromotion. Email at
carl@topwebpromotion.com http://topwebpromotion.com
