This writing is intended to serve as a basic guide to website design with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a key element. It is not intended to be "the end all" document for Search Engine Optimization. Search engines are constantly changing. It is up to you to keep abreast of the latest changes and make modifications to your website as appropriate. One concept that website owners consistently fail to grasp is that "SEO will NOT create overnight results". It can take months to see real results with your SEO efforts. So please don't get frustrated, be patient, it works Keep design simple Avoid the use of graphics, images and flash that are not relevant to your website. While the use of such features may really look nice, they tend to interfere with fast, efficient search engine indexing. In some cases they may even stop the indexing on your site. When you do use graphics, images or flash, surround them with keyword rich content. Research competitors and choose keywords carefully Find out who your top ranked competitors are and what keywords they are using. Write those keywords down then research how many times per day those keywords are used. Analyze the results of your research then pick the keywords that are appropriate for your website and used the most. There are numerous pieces of software available to assist you with this task. The one that I use and highly recommend is "web CEO". Use keywords in page title, directory and folder names The title tag for each webpage should be the first item within the head of the webpage. Use your top keywords within the title of the page. Often the naming of folders and directories for a website is overlooked. Search engines tend to give higher placement to sites that have directories and folders with keywords in their name. Use meta tags Appropriate use of title, keywords and description meta tags will greatly enhance your search engine ranking. Make sure that the description tag accurately describes your website, is NOT a sales pitch and uses each of your keywords. Use the exact meta tag description in the first part of the body of the webpage. Do NOT use the same meta tags for every page. In some cases, such use will cause your site to be penalized and result in a lower ranking. Use heading tags One little used trick to enhance search engine ranking is the use of head tags at the top of each page. The heading should include at least one key word and it should be designed to let the site visitor know what is to follow. Good keyword rich content-250-300 words per page When writing the copy for a webpage make sure it is informative and appropriate for the webpage. Try to use each keyword for the page 3-5 times while still making the text easy to read. Keyword density is an important issue for search engine ranking. Bold keywords Bold the keywords in your page copy one or two times only. Don't over do it. Use alt tags with each graphic Us an "alt" attribute for each image on a webpage. The alt attribute should describe the image and contain one or more keywords. Avoid image navigation only Avoid image navigation only because the search engine may not continue to the linked page. If you do use image navigation, use standard link navigation on the webpage before the image navigation appears. Titles for links Link titles are a great design feature because the visitor where the link will take them. Use a keyword or two in the link title to enhance your search engine placement Site map Large websites should use a site map to assist visitors in locating their desired topic. A site map will also be viewed by search engines and provides another internal link to all of your webpages. Special Content for Robots Major search engines will look for a Robots.txt file for your website. Be sure to include one. Google looks for a sitemap.xml file. A quick search of the internet will provide easy instructions on how to create these files. Do not use auto submit services for major search engines. Submit to major search engines manually and don't resubmit more than once per quarter. If you use these easy to follow guidelines you will greatly enhance your websites search engine placement and experience increased traffic to your website.
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