The way you format your website can have a rather large impact on your SERPS. By the topic of website formatting for SEO I am talking about where they keywords are placed, where your content appears on your page, the location of your menus, your heading tags, and other elements.

If you want to get top search engine results placement from Google, you are going to first need to keep track of what Google sees when its spider visits your website. For starters, your site should be designed to display CONTENT FIRST, use clean code that is W3C valid, consist of good page headings (H1, H2, H3, etc) and make proper use of alt tags wherever possible (on both internal links as well as images).

DO NOT build your website with Adobe Flash. Sure, it looks pretty but the search engine spiders cannot read the text inside of a flash movie and as a result WILL NOT index your page properly!

Also, avoid javascript on your webpage as much as possible.  If you need to use Javascript, try to place the code in an external file.  If at all possible, DO NOT use Javascript for navigation purposes.  I will explain why below.

 

If you have any questions regarding the SEO readiness of you website or wish to have me perform a free website evaluation for your business simply call me toll free at (800) 916-5230.

 

Coded for “Content First”

First of all, I want to inform you that I am not a rock star computer programmer. However, as I have been building websites over the past number of years both for myself and for clients I have noticed that certain types of designs and page layouts get indexed more accurately. I found that behind all of the complex search engine programming and “rules” the search engine spiders read right to left, top to bottom, just as we do here in North America. Now, I realize this may not be quantum theory for some but it is surprising how many websites simply are not “coded” to allow the search engine spiders to do their jobs.

It is important that the search engine spiders see your content first so that they can catalog the main theme of your webpage as well as document any and all important keywords within your website content. For many websites, they either have heavy navigation at the top of along the left hand side of their website. This is wrong. For websites such as this, placing a simple blank table above your left hand navigational content will force the search engine spider to skip from the left and read the body of your website first, then come back to the navigational elements.

As we continue and you begin to understand the importance of other on-page optimization factors such as heading tags and alt tags for keyword discovery, you will begin to understand the importance of having your website designed with search engine optimization in mind. If your website is formatted incorrectly, many search engine spiders will first archive your navigational content before moving on to your actual webpage content. This is not desirable as the menus and navigational blocks found on most websites are coded to use such scripting languages as Javascript or Mootools thus the search engine spider will be working harder to archive your website from the very beginning.

 

Clean Website Coding

If you have ever had to make a phone call into the tech support division of nearly any major brand or manufacturer you will notice that the business generally operates on different levels of standards and service and oftentimes there is another section entirely that deals with “quality control”. The same can be said for web programming as there is a governing body in place that sets standards for proper and clean HTML programming. This quality control division of the world wide web is known as the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. If you wish to learn more about the W3C you can visit their website at http://www.w3c.org.

To verify your website has proper coding, lacks javascript errors, and functions correctly you should visit the W3C website and utilize their free page validation tool. This validator tool located at http://validator.w3c.org checks each section of your website for completeness and consistency. I would recommend using this free tool for each key page of your website to ensure it is coded correctly and is easy for search engine spiders to navigate.

Any errors found by this validation tool can usually be corrected by someone familiar with your website’s specific markup language (ASP, PHP, HTML, etc). If you do not understand the errors or programming language you should not attempt to correct these errors yourself as you could potentially damage your website.

 

Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3)

Search engine spiders absolutely “dig” heading tags, commonly referred to as “headers”. The role of a heading tag is to annotate important structural information for your document. The <H1> tag is generally considered a title type of tag. Personally, I try to make at least one <H1> tag match my page title and I ALWAYS try to use keywords in both. As a rule of thumb it is extremely important to remember your keywords in these tags.

 

<H1>This is an example H1 heading</H1>
Just enter your other copy beneath...

 

As you use them, you will notice that <H1> formatted text is larger than <H2>, <H2> is larger than <H3>, and so on. Unless you have CSS (cascading style sheets) controlling the appearance of these tags they will generally default to the built in sizes of your web browser. Be sure to use these tags throughout your page but do so in a logical and readable format that will “flow” to the typical visitor.

If you use too many tags, spam your content with headings and keywords, or use unreadable writing styles just to get better search engine results you WILL NOT be successful. Sure, you might get a few extra visitors but what good is that if your bounce rate explodes? Furthermore, you may get sandboxed by Google for “spamming”. Not exactly the ideal place you want to be.

 

Using Alt Tags

If you have graphics or images displayed on your website you need alt tags. period. Simply stated, an alt tag is just a name you give to an image or graphic. This name is rendered by a small line of code which can also help Google find relevant keywords about your site and its content.

The alt tag is also useful for those with disabilities or slower internet connections as text can be displayed instead of an image should your page take too long to load or the visitor uses text to speech to understand the content and “imagery” on your website. The primary function of an alt tag is to help visitors with disabilities but the most used functions are displaying text while an image loads and helping the search engines to index your site.

Whenever I name my images using an alt tag, I try to use some keywords followed by the word “image” or “graphic”. Google will use these keywords to categorize your image keywords for the Google Images search tool but in addition these keywords will also add relevance and authority to your website. Many also recommend that you also name your actual image file similarly. Although I rarely name my images based on keywords, I always use alt tags whenever possible.

 

Proper alt tag syntax:

<img href="http://www.yoursite.com/images/keyword.jpg" width="100" height="22" alt="keyword image">

 

As with other techniques, overuse of alt tags can result in Google penalizing you for “keyword stuffing”. If its obvious to you that there are way too many keywords on your webpage, it will be obvious to Google as well.

 

Keyword Placement

When and how is just as important in keyword placement as is the number of times your keyword appears on any given page. It is important to not only research clean, converting keywords but to also have a good strategy for incorporating them into your webpage content. How many times your keyword appears on any given page is often referred to as “keyword density”. Keyword density is no longer a crucial factor with search engines, however some experts still suggest using keyword densities of around 3-4%.

In your website content, it is important that you include your keyword at least 3-5 times within the first 25 words of copy, and also try to include the keyword a few times at the end. The content appearing between should have the keyword throughout, but in a natural manner. Choose 2-4 good keywords per page and optimize for the root keyword and a few variations in your webpage title tags, your heading tags, and your alt tags if you use images. Also be sure to bold or italicize the keywords 1-2 times per page as well.

This can prove challenging at first but once you learn to write naturally while focusing on a few select keywords the process of producing quality, search engine content will become  easier. Remember, always choose quality over quantity.  It is much more important to have natural, well written copy than it is to have pages full of heavily saturated keywords. Write for the visitor, not the search engine.

 

No Flash or On-Page Javascript 

This is something I can’t stress enough, having made the mistake of operating a flash-based website myself in the past and knowing the situation hasn’t changed much. Flash, although gorgeous to look at and extremely interactive, is mostly unreadable by even the most sophisticated search engine spider. Even if your content is loaded via an include file located externally, it is nearly impossible to rank well if your website is developed mostly in Adobe Flash.

Extensive use of on-page Javascript can also be detrimental to your SERPs. The search engine spiders simply cannot understand the code. Especially in the navigation area of your website, loading too much on-page javascript can result in browser errors, search engine spider issues, and larger page sizes which increases the page load time. Bad for SEO.

If you are going to use javascript, try to load a majority of the commands from an external javascript file. Google loves clean code, and loading your javascript from an external javascript file will assist googlebot in retaining copies of your webpage.

 

Using a Sitemap

A sitemap is a very useful tool for both website visitors and for search engine optimization. A sitemap is a single file on your website containing a link to each and every other page of importance on your website by order of importance. You can develop and HTML sitemap and include it as an alternate page on your website or you can choose to use an XML format for submission to such tools as Google Webmaster Tools located at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools.

Always link your sitemap to the main file of your website. This is important because first the spider will visit your homepage and then begin to follow the links from that point forward. Once a spider reaches your sitemap it will spider and cache each and every link located within your sitemap. It is important also to include a short description with each link and utilizing your relevant keywords.

XML Sitemaps offers a fantastic tool for automatically creating sitemaps. Download the auto sitemap creation tool from XML Sitemaps.

 

One Final Note

Formatting your website for SEO is a critical step in not only preparing your website for improved search engine rankings, but also in understanding some of the underlying principles of SEO as a whole. Appropriate keywords, proper title tags, descriptions, headings, and alt tags are a must when you begin the task of improving your website from a search engine optimization standpoint.

When formatting your website for SEO, always remember that more is not necessarily better. If you crunch too many keywords into any given webpage it could potentially damage its SEO rankings or worse, be penalized in what is known as the Google “Sandbox”. Always write for your visitor first, for the search engines second, and still ensure that proper grammar is always utilized.

 

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