1. Your Web Design Should Emphasize Text and
Not Graphics
"Search engine friendly" means that search
engines should be able to find data on your site
that they can put in their data bases. While a
picture may be worth a thousand words, a search
engine is trying to classify pages by text and
not by images. If you have an opening page with
a beautiful picture of the sea and only two
words of text saying "enter here" then this page
will not rank high in searches for Florida
Vacations. Similarly, if you have a headline
with important text containing your site's
keywords, it should not be displayed as a gif or
jpeg image. Pages that are all flash or all
images are not search engine friendly, and often
are not user friendly as well.
2. Links to Your Interior Pages Should Be
Easily Found by Search Engines
An important thing to remember is that you
want not only your main page, but all of your
interior pages to be included in the search
engine index. While most people will probably
enter your site through the main page, many will
enter after doing searches which lead them to
your inner pages. The best way to make sure that
search engines will find and index your inner
pages is to include text links to these pages.
If you have a navigation system which uses
Java-script or images, then it is best to add an
additional text link navigation bar at the
bottom of the site to ensure that the robot
follows the links to your inner pages.
3. Your Pages Should Be Built Around
Specific Keywords or Keyword Phrases
Robotic search engines and human users have
one thing in common: they are trying to figure
out what your site or your particular web page
is all about. It is not possible to get high
rankings for thirty different search terms with
only one web page. However, it is possible to
build separate web pages which explain and give
importance to various aspects of your
organization's activity. These sub pages can be
optimized so that they perform well in searches
for your various keywords
4. Once Your Material is Organized, Then
Your Keywords Should Appear in Strategic
Portions of Your Web Pages
If your site is about Florida Vacations, then
these words should appear in the following
places of your html pages:
a. In the File Name or the URL
If your site is called
www.floridavacations.com then this will give you
a head start in any searches for this term.
Similarly, if your company is called XYZ
Travels, you may have a web page with this url:
www.xyztravels.com/floridavacations.html
The URL or file name is an important
indicator to a search engine, so don't miss the
opportunïty to put your important term either in
your main domain name or in your file names.
b. In the Title Tag
The text that is displayed in the blue line
at the top of your browser is your title tag.
The title tag is located in the <head> section
of the document. If your main phrase is "Florida
Vacations" then the title tag in your html
document should look something like this:
<title>Florida Vacations:
Florida Vacation Information by XYZ
travel</title>
c. In the Description Tag
The description tag is not seen on the web
page but search engines often display it as the
text which gives the searcher an idea of what
your page is about. The description tag should
be compelling, and make someone want to click
and see your page, while also containing the
keywords that are in your url and your title
tag. A description tag for this site might look
as follows: <meta
name="description" content="Florida Vacations:
Plan your Florida vacation with the help of XYZ
travels. You will find up-to-date information
and the best ratës on accommodations,
entertainment, and transportation in Florida on
our website.">
d. In the Headlines
Just as someone reading a newspaper looks at
headlines to find out what is important, a
search engine robot looks at the headlines of a
web page in order to pick up the essential
feature of that page. Put your main phrase in a
headline and place it near the top of the page.
Your headline text should be enclosed with
special header tags such as <h1>, <h2>, <h3>. A
headline tag for our hypothetical page could be
written as follows:
<h1>Florida Vacations: Plan Your Vacation Now
And Save Monëy on Accommodations, Entertainment
and Transport in Florida</h1>
If you don't like the look of the h1 tag,
then use a smaller tag, h2 or h3, or adjust your
site's style sheet so that the h1 tag is
displayed in a small font which better matches
your body text.
e. In the Body Text of Your Page
Your main keywords or key phrase should
appear in the first paragraph of text and in a
natural way throughout the text and also at the
end of the page. In normal writing you would
first introduce your subject, then explain what
it is about and then summarize at the end.
Follow this same procedure when you start
writing your web page. Pages written in this
style will automatically have correct keyword
density and distribution.
f. In Anchor Text on Your Page
Anchor text is the clickable portion of links
on your web page. Suppose you are describing
your Florida Vacations and you want to direct
your web visitors to an inside page with more
information about this subject. Instead of
making a link that says "click here," it would
be better to have a link that says "Click here
for more information about Florida Vacations" or
even better, the link text will only be "Florida
Vacations" and the "click here" will be rendered
as normal text.
If you follow these
search-engine-optimization steps when building
your website you will end up with web pages that
are easily understood by your visitors, and
easily classified and indexed by search engines.
