Search Engine Optimization: Four Vital Steps for Optimizing
Your Website
By
Donald Nelson, copyright 2005
There is a bit of confusion
about search engine optimization. Some people think that
SEO
(the abbreviated form) is nothing more than tricking search
engines into giving a high ranking for a particular site.
Others think that search engine optimization is so complex
that they could not possibly understand it. The truth lies
somewhere between these two extremes. Search engine
optimization is best defined as the art and science of
building web pages that are both search engine friendly and
user friendly. Below are four basic steps that you should take
when optimizing your web pages.
1. Your web design should emphasize text and not graphics.
“Search engine friendly” means that search engines should be
able to find data on your site. While a picture may be worth a
thousand words, a search engine is trying to classify pages by
text and not by images. If you have an opening page with a
beautiful picture of the sea and only two words of text saying
“enter here” then this page will not rank high in searches for
Florida Vacations. Similarly if you have a headline with
important text containing your site’s keywords it should not
be displayed as a gif or jpeg image. Pages that are all flash
or all images are not search engine friendly, and often are
not user friendly as well.
2. Links to your interior pages should be easily found by
search engines
An important thing to remember is that you want not only your
main page, but all of your interior pages to be included in
the search engine index. While most people will probably enter
your site through the main page, many will enter after doing
searches which lead them to your inner pages. The best way to
make sure that search engines will find your inner pages is to
make sure you have text links to these pages. Even if you have
a main navigation system based on Java script or on images, an
additional text link navigation bar at the bottom of the site
will be helpful to users and search engines alike.
To be absolutely certain that all your pages get indexed,
build a sitemap page. This is simply a web page with a one
sentence text description of each of your interior pages.
These sentences should be linked to the pages which they
describe. Put a text link pointing to your site-map on your
main page and all the other pages of your site
3. Your pages should be built around specific keywords or
keyword phrases
Robotic search engines and human users have one thing in
common: they are trying to figure out what your site or your
particular web page is all about. It is not possible to get
high rankings for thirty different search terms with only one
web page. However it is possible to build separate web pages
which explain and give importance to various aspects of your
organization’s activity. These sub pages can be optimized so
that they perform well in searches for your various keywords.
4. Once you have organized your material, place your
keywords in the strategic portions of your web pages
If your site is about Florida Vacations, then these words
should appear in the following places on your html pages:
a. In the file name or the url.
If your site is called www.floridavacations.com then this will
give you a head start in any searches for this term. Similarly
if your company is called XYZ Travels you may have a web page
with this url: www.xyztravels.com/floridavacations.html
The url or file name is an important indicator to a search
engine, so don’t miss the opportunity to put your important
term either in your main domain name or in your file names.
b. In the title tag
This is the blue line showing at the top of your browser and
located in the <head> section of the document. If your main
phrase is “Florida Vacations” then the title tag in your html
document should look something like this: <title>Florida
Vacations: Florida Vacation Information by XYZ travel</title>
c. In the description tag
The description tag is not seen on the web page but search
engines often display it as the text which gives the searcher
an idea of what your page is about. The description tag should
be compelling, and make someone want to click and see your
page, while containing the keywords that are in your url and
your title tag. A description tag for this site might look as
follows: <meta name="description" content="Florida Vacations:
Plan your Florida vacation with the help of XYZ travels. You
will find up to date information and the best rates on
accommodations, entertainment, and transportation in Florida
on our website. ">
c. In the headlines
Just as someone reading a newspaper looks at headlines to find
out what is important, a search engine robot looks at the
headlines of a web page in order to pick up the essential
feature of that page. Put your main phrase in a headline and
place near the top of the page. Your headline text should be
enclosed with special header tags such as <h1>, <h2>, <h3>. A
headline tag for our hypothetical page could be written as
follows: <h1> Florida Vacations: Plan Your Vacation Now And
Save Money or Accommodations, entertainment and Transport in
Florida</h1>
If you don’t like the look of the h1 tag, then use a smaller
tag, h2 or h3, or adjust your site
‘s style sheet so that the h1 tag is displayed in a small font
which better matches your body text.
d. In the body text of your page
Your main keywords or key phrase should appear in the first
paragraph of text and in a natural way throughout the text and
also at the end of the page. In normal writing you would first
introduce your subject, then explain what it is about and then
summarize at the end. Follow this same procedure when you
start writing your web page. Pages written in this style will
automatically have correct keyword density and distribution.
c. In anchor text on your page
Anchor text is the clickable portion of links on your web
page. Suppose you are describing your Florida Vacations and
you want to direct your web visitors to an inside page with
more information about this subject. Instead of making a link
that says “click here,” it would be better to have a link that
says “Click here for more information about Florida Vacations”
or even better, the link text will only be “Florida Vacations”
and the “click here” will be rendered as normal text.
If you follow these search engine optimization steps when
building your website you will end up with web pages that are
easily understood by your visitors, and easily classified and
indexed by search engines.
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and
social worker. He has been working on the Internet since 1995,
and is currently the director of A1-Optimization http://www.a1-optimization.com
a firm providing low cost search engine optimization,
submission and web promotion services.
You may reprint or use this article on your website on in an
ezine as long as this paragraph is adjacent to the article.
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