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Search Engine Optimisation Tips
At the VERY LEAST, you should consider the first six items. If you take care of these, you will go a long way towards achieving higher rankings for your search term.
- Use your important search term (keyphrase) in the <Title> tag. If your page is about green widgets and your <Title> is 'Home', the search engines can only assume that this page is about your Home, not green widgets.
Limit your <Title> tag to no more than about 40 characters.
- Make sure that every page has a unique, meaningful title!
Don't use multiple <Title> tags on any one page! They are of no value, and verge on spam!
- Make sure that you provide a meaningful description, incorporating your keyphrase, in the <meta name='description'> tag, because this is often what the search engine will display to a potential visitor, and you want this to entice the visitor to come to your site by clicking on your listing.
- Use your keyphrase in heading tags such as <H1> or <H2>. This clearly indicates to the search engines that this page is really about green widgets.
[You can change the way that these headings look using an external or embedded Style Sheet]
- The text within the body of your page, that is, visible text between the <Body> tag and the </Body> tag, should be roughly in the range 200 to 500 words. [Some engines prefer more, but this is a good rule of thumb!] You should use your keyphrase 2 or 3 times.
- Above all else, focus on meaningful, well written text, aimed at your visitor. If it reads well from the viewer's perspective, it will be OK with the engines!
DO NOT overuse your keyphrase!
- The search engine spiders can't see pictures, only text! Make sure that any images displayed on the page include your keyphrase in the 'alt' attribute in the <IMG> tag. This is the text message which is displayed when a visitor moves their mouse over the image. At the very least, it gives the spider an indication of what the image is about.
- If you use Tables in your page, and you use the column on the left side for navigation, your navigation will push the important text in the other cells, further down in the HTML, even though it is high on the visible page! This lowers its importance in the eyes of the spiders. You can fix this by using a 'dummy' cell in the first row of the first column of the table!
- As a general rule, avoid the use of FRAMES if possible! Many search engines can't (or won't) drill down to the pages involved. This may mean they won't follow your navigation and therefore won't find your other pages. Even if they do, they will only index the content pages, and they will be displayed to a visitor without their intended Frame and this is almost certainly NOT what you intended!
- If you use CSS, try and place the Style Sheet data as an external Style Sheet, and use a <link>. This avoids the Style Sheet pushing your valuable content further down the HTML.
- Similarly, if you use JavaScript, try to make that an external .js or .jss file, for the same reason! Alternatively, place the <script> .... </script> at the end, just before the </body> tag.
- Flash movies are possibly an excellent way to show off your stunning design and animation skills. BUT, they are NOT appropriate as an entry point to your website, particularly if they take a while to load.
You stand a very good chance of your hard-won visitor clicking away before they even see what they really came for. They don't help the search engines much either!
Use them, if you must, in subordinate pages.
 Download these Tips [Acrobat PDF]
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Download these Tips [Acrobat PDF]
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