Website Design

(click here for the Wikipedia definition of SEO)

First - don't listen to me!  Well - not only to me.  Why would I say such a thing?  Because I am not an expert.  There are companies that do nothing but SEO!  It would be nothing if not arrogant to suppose that a single person can know as much as an expert on the "coal face".  However unlike many, I admit to it.  Be that as it may, contained herein are some excellent foundations on which to grow; if you follow then your SEO strategy will be about refinement instead of design (which equates to saved time and money).

First things first, I thoroughly recommend reviewing: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ ›  Webmaster Tools › Help articles › My site and Google › Site management › Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Why?  Because a) let's face it - Google is arguably the most important search engine and that is where the major pay-offs lie and b) these hints are good for the other search engines too.  Feel free to research the others, by all means.

Search engine optimisation is a bit of a black art. Trying to slow down fraud, major search engines change their algorithms often and keep their those very secret. To guarantee you a non-paid top spot in the search engine rankings is bordering on fraud and there is never any guarantee. But you CAN and should do the right things to be ranked.

Caution:  Don't employ tricks!  You should always do the right thing. The consequences of using methods to artificially boost your rankings might actually include the opposite effect, particularly if you are caught. For this reason, it is best to take a relaxed view of your page rankings. Do the right things and let it happen.

Page Titles

The page title appears at the top of your web browser's window. As you can see in figure 1, it is "Marc & Tristan Website Design". See it in the top left corner?

Figure 1: Title on a web page

But this is not the only reason the page title is important. If you look at figure 2, you can see what you title your page is what is actually brought up as the link to your web page. So your title is pretty darn important. In fact, you definitely need to keep your keywords in mind when choosing a title.

Figure 2: A snapshot from a search

Descriptions

A description is a two-line (maximum 255 characters) sentence or two about each page on your website. Refer to figure 1. You can see that the description follows the link to your web page. Again, use a liberal smattering of keywords. This 255 characters is what attracts your potential customer to click on the link to find out more. So take some time on this!

Keywords

Ah - our unsung heros are back. Keywords are the most complex part to get right for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Keywords are what a person enters in to the search bar of the search engine they use. Your job is to pick what your customers will search for.

Here are some guidelines in select your keywords:

• don't overuse your keywords in your copy; make sure the keywords you use are used naturally. Keyword density should be about 4 to 6%!  A simple rule of thumb? Don't cheat!!
• try some tag clouds to make sure that the keywords you want to emerge from your copy actually do - i.e. check that your copy is on message.  Here is a good free one that I've found:  TagCrowd
• Select a group of keywords for each page on your website.
• Don't bother too much with keywords for which there is a lot of competition like "computers", for example. Put them in, by all means, but put them last and be sparing with them.
• Avoid filler words like "to", "at", "the", "a" etc.
• Try to think of what your customers will search for.
• Don't be afraid of a few compound words such as "website design" but try to avoid them as a rule.
• Be selective. Your keywords list should be no longer than 255 characters if you can contain it to that.
• Personally (you'll notice it for this website) I don't think it is actually important to use the keywords meta tag.  Use tag clouds instead and let the search engines work it out for themselves.  I think that the keywords meta tag will either be ignored altogether or not do any harm, so include it if you wish, however make as sure as possible that the keywords align to the content.

Note: every single page should have its own
unique Title, Description and Keywords!

Makes sense, doesn't it?  Just being explicit :)

Links

Links to and from your site is a major way to elevate your position in search engines and a nice way to gain online "cred". Here are some pointers:

• Do: make a list of suppliers and affiliates. Contact them and find out:
  • can you put a link to their site on yours? (who would say no?!)
  • can they put a link to your site from theirs? This is important.
• Don't: look for shortcuts. Some people think that the more websites that their website appears on, the better - regardless of where. This is not the case at all. If your site appears on irrelevant sites or in "Link Farms", then some search engines will actually penalize your website. Similarly, be careful not to list these websites on your own.

Site Submission (and other activities)

If you search for submit url in your favourite search engine, you'll soon find links like these:  Yahoo! | Bing | Google | Google Australia.  Go ahead an submit URLs.  This may help however don't abuse it because otherwise again the reality may be that your website is sandboxed because you've spammed the search engine.  Remember, do the right thing!

Sitemaps.  I'm not talking about the sort of sitemaps you find on websites but the XML sitemaps underneath them; these are a little more complex and outside of the scope of this document.  They're pretty ugly in plain view, but here is the sitemap for this site.

The next part makes sense ONLY to me.  In the real world it is denied.  In MY mind it makes perfect sense that participating in programmes such as Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Adsense, and Adwords would all help your Google rankings.  But apparently they do not.  Who knows?  What I do know is that all of those things are very interesting and worthwhile at least investigating and they certainly will not HARM you SEO endeavours.  Programmes like Adwords can get very complex - certainly beyond the scope of an introductory site such as this - and you may wish to seek professional advise as it does cost money.

To avoid Flash Sites or not to avoid Flash Sites?

(Flash as in Adobe Flash)

All I can say is that my opinion is that if your site will be flash driven, make sure your designer has a proven track record of good SEO on flash sites or have a non-flash variant designed as well.  I think Flash is wonderful - you might even say flash :) - though personally I would choose to use it selectively and concentrate SEO outside it.  Not many flash sites come up for me as a result of my searches...  Perhaps I am the odd one out.

How long until the website is indexed?

So, you've done all the right things.  You've spent a long time generating an XML sitemap, signing up for Google Analytics, Webmaster tools - maybe even for Adsense and Adwords.  You have even submitted a few pages.  You're all set and ready to go!  Time for results, right?

Whoa - hold your horses there!

it can take weeks, months and even YEARS to get results!  Another reason to not take shortcuts.  I read once that the age of the website is actually a determinent in the ranking.  So like it or not, you may just need to wait and/or use other methods to promote your website.

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