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Search Engine Optimization - SEO

Why Design with SEO?

Search engines are the main way Internet users find what they are looking for on the Internet. It is necessary to include Search Engine Optimization SEO or the site will not be indexed with DMOZ and submission to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, along with the rest will not be included.

What do search engines do?

They perform 3 basic tasks:

Search engine spiders find and fetch web pages, a process called crawling or spidering,
then build a lists of words phrases found on each page. Search engines then keep an index
(or database) of the words and phrases found on each page, which they are able to crawl.
End users use search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN,
to search their indices for keywords and keyword phrases.
Search engines then try to match the words in the search with the web page
that is most likely to have information for which the end user is searching.

Search Engine Visibility

Search engine visibility starts with knowing what words your target market would search for. These words are called "Keywords" or "Keyword Phrases" which must match the search engine criteria in order to be ranked and displayed. The most important areas ranked by the search engines are the "Page Title" and the "Page Description" then the physical web text content of the site.

Where do the search engines find these keywords?

1. Title Tags
2. Visible Body Text
3. Meta Tags
4. Graphic Images

Web Page Titles

Web pages use a tag called <Title> to tell the search engine the title of your web site to be displayed. Also it is displayed at the top left hand corner in the title bar of the current window.

META Tags

META Tags are used as part of your HTML code. Some "Spiders" use the information contained within META Tags to index your Web page. In most cases a Spider will grab only the first few words, sentences or paragraphs and use those words as the description and keywords for your Web page. When properly constructed you can actually control how these robots display your Web page in their search engines.

Web Page META Description

Web pages use a META Tag called "Description" to tell the search engine what the web site is about.

Graphic Image

This is the text that appears in a reader's browser if the reader has his or her image loading turned off or if the browser doesn't display graphics. This is also useful for programs which read text and descriptions for the visually impaired.

Key Word Selection

Take the time to search for sites, which have similar content. When successful in locating the similar sites annotate and use these words as Keywords. Do not assume you know what words your target audience will search with. A good source for keywords is a company's current marketing material remove all the marketing hype and observe the common keywords used for the industry or product.

Keyword Phrases

As we have determined keywords are important; however, we tend to search with multiple words also known as keyword phrases. These phrases are a combination of keywords your target audience is most likely to use. This includes singular and plural versions, synonyms, misspellings, acronyms, and abbreviations.

Navigation scheme

The strategy of placing keyword-rich text in your web site is useless if the search engine spiders have no way of finding the content. The way your pages are linked to each other and the way your site is linked with other sites can impact search engine visibility.

SEO Popularity Component

Search engines use an algorithm to calculate how popular the site is. The more popular the site the higher you will appear on searches. Attaining popularity is not a simple task and is based on two components Link Popularity and Click Through Popularity.

Link Popularity is not as simple as getting numerous links from other sites. The higher the quality of the link (i.e. that sties popularity) carries more weight than a less popular un-indexed site.
Click Through Popularity is difficult also both the major search engines and directories are measuring how often end users are clicking the links to your site. This includes links from other sites and search engines displaying the site for a search requested.

Reciprocal Linking

The following is an excerpt from Google about exchanging links and the associated PageRank

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Designs, which cause problems:

Poor HTML Coding

While the browsers Internet Explorer and Netscape will display bad code the spiders are not as forgiving and will not include your site.

Frames should be avoided spiders do not index the site correctly missing important content is possible,
JavaScript effects for links i.e. arrays drop down menus cannot be followed
Dynamic or database driven web pages are created on the fly so the site can never be indexed
100% Flash Website's with no text for the search engines to index