SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Programmer Guidelines
 The Programmer needs
to work closely with the Copywriter and the Graphic artist to ensure that the Website
has a good Ranking.
Here are some Website programming guidelines on Search Engine placement:-
- The number of spelling errors found on the Web is high – check the spelling
of each Web Page thoroughly. Copy each Web Page from the Browser to Notepad, and
then to Microsoft Word for a full Grammar and Spelling check. Misspelled words are
not likely to be helpful in attracting visitors.
- For visitor readability, there should not be more than 600 Words on any Web Page.
This Web Page is nicely under the limit.
- The size of the Web Page, including Images, should be less than 40 KB.
- New websites start with dreadful rankings when doing a Google or Yahoo search. The
Sandbox affect is used as a probation period for new sites. Rankings are inhibited
during this period. After about 6 to 12 months, rankings will improve.
- If local traffic is required, make sure that the domain name specifies the country.
For example, use www.mycompany.com.au instead of www.mycompany.com for a better
chance of being found in Australia. The URL need not contain Keywords.
- Despite the advances in CSS, Tables are still the easiest way to align columns.
However, don't use Tables within Tables within Tables. Search Engines have difficulties
with complex structures.
- The Title is the single most important factor in your entire web page. Each and
every web page should have a descriptive page specific Title. The Title appears
at the top of the Website's Search Engine listing, as well as in the browser. It
is important to insure that Titles are both Search Engine and visitor friendly.
The Title tag is crucial in letting Search Engines know what each Web Page is all
about, and it has a large affect on the ranking. The Title tag is also important
for the visitor. Having found your site, if a visitor does not find the Title appealing,
good rankings are a futile effort.The Title should contain important Keywords. It
should be concise - not more than 80 characters.
- Make sure that any external link is relevant. Getting a link on a Health site if
you are selling software is going to hold little weight. Irrelevant links may cause
the Website to be downgraded.
- Be original. Google's Quality guidelines state: "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains,
or domains with substantially duplicate content. … If a site doesn't meet
our quality guidelines, it may be blocked from the index." Since the introduction
of latent semantic indexing, many sites have been de-listed by Google as being of
little use to the visitor, and for using duplicate content.
- Keywords should be used in the URL of each Webpage. Use hyphens rather than underscores
between the keywords, but keep the URL short.
- Put the Keyword phrases in the ALT tags of all images.
- Make use of the HTML Heading tags H1, H2 and h2 to specify significant portions
of content. They're there to tell the visitor what each page is about. The most
important is the H1 tag – it is given a significant weight in the Search Engine
algorithm. Keep the headings short-and-sweet and based on Keyword phrases.
- The links between Webpages within the Website are important. All links should use
Text with targeted Keywords. Always use the Title attribute with <a> tags.
Do not use hyperlink text such as "Click Here!". This will not improve the Keyword
Density.
- Keeping track of Web traffic is essential in determining who is visiting a Website,
and what Keywords they are using in their Searches. The best analysis that I have
found comes from StatCounter.
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