Having Web Pages that are Friendly to Search Engines

By: Carol Forrest

When you have a website for your company, it is akin to a shop front for what you have to offer. It is an expression of what your company is all about, it is a welcoming place for any potential clients and of course it supplies details about what your company offers its clients and how you treat them. When somebody visits your website, if they feel at ease with what they perceive and if your site is able to sustain the interest of site viewers, then they will dwell on your site for reasonable periods of time, which will mean that you will have a far better chance of securing their custom. They may choose to bookmark your website, so that the next time they are in need of what you are offering, they will know where they can come. If you have a website that is well put together, then that will set your business apart from your competitors and make what you have to offer really stand out.

However, being in business is about much more than having a nice shop front because you need to have people entering to see what there is on offer. The Internet is the most proficient method of enticing site visitors via search engines when people hunt for what they want.

When you set up your website, you need to bear in mind what the search engine spiders want to perceive. A search engine spider is something that trawls the Internet for website pages to exhibit. There are some essential factors to think about when you turn out your source code.

You need to have a Site Map that is linked on every page and it should include a brief description of each page of your website, plus the anchor text. Anchor text is words that are highlighted and show the visible part of a link – they should mirror leading keywords on the site pages.

Every page on your website should be linked to the Home Page. It is good practice to also have some links to pages that are related to a particular page or have similar page content.
Each page of the site should have explanatory title tags and meta tags. A title tag is what you see on the bar of the browser. Meta tags are concealed within the source code and need to be as near to the beginning as you can possibly get them. They should both embrace leading keywords that are reflective of the content on the page. It is preferable if the title is identical to the anchor text on your site map, with the meta tags having identical keywords to your site map link description.

When you have integrated multimedia on your web pages, you should ensure there is a title containing the keywords. Any videos or audio material need to be incorporated into a multimedia page and linked from your home page, as well as any page that has multimedia with keywords that describe the video. If you have this, it will assist with your multimedia showing on multimedia searches via search engines and give strength to your keywords.
When setting up the coding for your site, ensure that you avoid using frames. These were very widely used at one point in time, as they make html programming easier, but are not so easy for search engines to look at. It is also a good idea to avoid splash screens at the beginning of your web pages, as search engine spiders may just pass your site, as there is no content for them to see. The same can be said for pages that are designed almost exclusively with Flash. If you are insistent upon having a splash screen at the beginning of your website, make sure you have a link for your home page or a skip intro link, so that your visitors will have a choice as to whether they want to watch your splash page or not.
Ensure you do not use hidden text on your web pages that is not detectable to website visitors. This was an old trick that used to be employed when search engine optimisation was still in its infancy and keywords were the order of the day.

If you incorporate JavaScript or Flash driven menus, it is important to include html links to your home page and site map.

Try to bear in mind that your website is for the convenience of your site visitors who will doubtless find it via search engines and so you need to design your website with this in mind.

About the Author

Carol Forrest is the Managing Director of Webs Galore Limited, a professional web design agency specialising in the creation of cheap web design for small and medium sized companies.

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