So you have a fantastic website but no one ever visits. You may ask?
Why? Your website should be designed with search engines in mind. Too
many web designers are graphic artists that excel at image
manipulation, but lack a basic understanding of search engine
optimization. Web design and search engine optimization (SEO) should
not be mutually exclusive. Webmasters should have a clear understanding
of both design techniques and how the search engines work.
Incredible graphics on a website without any traffic, will do little to
fill the coffers. Follow these basic guidelines to ensure that your
website will be visited and attractive.
1. Navigation
Both humans and crawlers (search engines) need to be able to navigate
your website. Avoid using technology that prohibits the search engine's
ability to spider web pages. The majority of search engines have the
ability to follow the links on a website if you use standard HTML.
Observe normal convention and make the links obvious and available to
all website visitors.
2. Easy to Read
Fonts should be legible and webmasters should utilize white space judiciously. Text on the web page should be easy to read.
3. Speed
Avoid using overly large graphics that are slow to load. Remember you
only have mere seconds to capture the visitors attention, do not waste
precious seconds with web pages that are slow to load. Search engines
too will become impatient and give up on your website if it takes too
long to view the content. As a result you should avoid using free
hosting services that might be unreliable or slow to respond if you
receive any web traffic surges.
4. Consistency
Your website should maintain a consistent look and feel. In other
words, all the pages on the website should have a similar look, color
scheme and navigation.
5. Above the Fold
The most important information on the your web page should appear above
the "fold". This means that the website visitor should be able to view
the most important content without having to use the scroll bar.
6. Contact Information
Include corporate contact information on the website. This lends your
company credibility, anyone can pretend to be anyone or anything.
Including contact information on a website shows that you are a serious
and legitimate business entity.
7. Avoid Javascript /Ajax
Javascript and Ajax are cool, but they are not search friendly. It is
best to stick with good old HTML. Search engines at this point are
unable to spider the website contents that are displayed using
Javascript. This is also true of websites that are dynamically updated
with Ajax. Chances are the body of your website will help your website
rank well; do not waste the search engine opportunity by using
Javascript or Ajax.
8. Meta Data Matters
Each and every web page on the website should contain a unique title
and description. Many search engines extract meta data from the website
header and use it to classify and categorize the web pages listing. The
web page title and description should relate to the webpage contents.
9. Keywords Naturally
Use website keywords and keyword phrases in the web copy in a natural
way. Search engines are starting to discern unnatural text, machine
generated content and content that is cobbled together by a bot. Write
your website's content for humans not search engines.
10. Web Page Focus
Each web page on a website should focus on one or two keywords or
keyword phrases, no more no less. The keywords should be incorporated
into the meta tags, and web copy.
An optimized website can bring search traffic and visitors who have a
natural interest in your product or service. Optimization should be
part of the design process. Before hiring a web designer make sure they
understand both your design needs and search engine optimization.