SEO for Design

SEO FOR DESIGN

Much of Search Engine Optimization is really about common sense and simplicity in the Web design and development. The purpose of SEO is to make the website as search engine friendly as possible so that it is properly categorized and displayed as high on relevant searches as possible. While SEO doesn't require advanced knowledge of programming and search algorithms but it does require a basic understanding of how search engines work.

In general, there are two aspects of SEO to consider: how the web crawlers read and categorize websites; and how the search engines figure out which pages relate to what keywords and phrases.

Search engines collect data about each website by sending a little program called a web crawler (also known as a "spider" or "bot") to visit the site and copy its content to the search engine's database. These programs are designed to follow links from one page to the next, and as they copy content from one page, they record links and send other crawlers to make copies of content on those linked pages. This process continues over and over through all links found on the website - and continues on to subsequent sites, continually collecting data for the search engine.

Knowing crawlers and how they read information on a site is the technical end of basic SEO. Crawlers are designed to read site content like a human would, going through each piece of content - image and text - item by item. If the crawler encounters a link it can follow, it will record that link and send another crawler to copy and record data found on the page the link leads to. The crawler will continue through the site until it has recorded everything.

As spiders follow links and record everything in their paths, one can safely assume that if a link to a site exists, a spider will find that site. There is no need to manually or electronically submit your site to the major search engines. The search spiders are perfectly capable of finding it on their own, provided a link to your site exists somewhere on the web. Search engines have an uncanny ability to judge the topic or theme of pages they are examining, and use that ability to judge the topical relationship of pages that are linked together. The most valuable incoming links, come from sites that share topical themes.

Once a web crawler finds your site, helping it get around is the first priority. One of the most important basic SEO tips is to provide clear paths for crawlers to follow to each part of the website. This is easily accomplished by providing easy to follow text links directed to the most important pages on the site in the navigation menu or simply at the bottom of each page. One of these text links should lead to a text-based sitemap, which lists and provides a text link to every page in the site. The sitemap can be the most basic page in the site as its purpose is more to direct spiders than help lost site visitors though designers should keep site visitors in mind when creating the sitemap. Google also accepts more advanced, XML based sitemaps, which can be read about in their Webmaster Help Center.

Having web crawlers access all the areas of the site is half the battle - the other half is found in the site content. Search engines are supposed to provide their users with lists of pages that relate to the search terms people enter in their search box. Search engines need to determine which of billions of pages is relevant to a small number of specific words. In order to do this, the search engine needs to know your site relates to those words.

To begin with, there are a few elements, a search engine looks at when examining a page. After the URL of a site, a search web crawler records the site title. It also examines the description meta tag. Both of these elements are found in the "head" section of the page or template source code.

Titles should be written using the strongest keyword targets as the foundation. Some titles are written using two or three basic two-keyword phrases. A key to writing a good title is to remember that human readers will see the title as the reference link on the search engine results page. Don't overload your title with keyword phrases. Concentrate on the strongest keywords that best describe the topic of the page content.

The description meta tag is also fairly important. Search engines tend to use it to gather information on the topic or theme of the page. A well written description is phrased in two or three complete sentences with the strongest keyword phrases woven into each sentence. As with the title tag, some search engines will display the description on the search results pages, generally using it in whole or in part to provide the text that appears under the reference link.

Due to abuse by webmasters, such as using irrelevant terms, search engines place minor (if any) weight in the keywords meta tag. As such, it is not necessary to spend a lot of time worrying about the keywords tag.

After reading information found in the "head" section of the source code, crawlers continue on to examine site content. It is wise to remember that crawlers read the same way we do, left to right and following columns.

Good content is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. The easiest and most basic SEO rule is search engine crawlers can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time. By providing a search engine spider with basic text content, you offer the engines information in the easiest format for them to read. While some search engines can strip text and link content from Flash files, nothing beats basic body text when it comes to providing information to the crawlers. You can almost always find a way to work basic body text into a site without compromising the designer's intended look, feel and functionality.

The content itself should be thematically focused. In other words, keep it simple. Some pages cover multiple topics on each page, which is confusing for crawlers. The basic SEO rule here is if you need to express more than one topic on a page, you need more pages. Fortunately, creating new pages with unique topic-focused content is one of the most basic SEO techniques, making a site simpler for both live-users and electronic crawlers.

When writing page content, try to use the strongest keyword targets early in the copy. For example, a site selling bananas might use the following as a lead-sentence:  "Bananas supplied by Weston Banana Emporium are the tastiest bananas available to the banana connoisseur, and are always ripe, fresh, and delicious."

The primary target is obviously connoisseur  of bananas. By placing the keyword phrases "bananas" and "banana connoisseur" along side other keywords such as the singular words, "ripe", "fresh" and "delicious", the sentence is crafted to help the search engine see a relationship between these words. Subsequent sentences would also have keywords and phrases weaved into them. 

One thing to keep in mind when writing page copy is unnecessary repetition of keywords, known as "keyword stuffing, is often considered spam by search engines, and might count against the website in terms of search engine rankings. For example, "Bananas When writing page content, try to use the strongest keyword targets early in the copy. For example, a site selling bananas might use the following as a lead-sentence:  "Bananas supplied by Weston Banana Emporium are the tastiest bananas available to the banana connoisseur, and are always ripe, fresh, and delicious."

The primary target is obviously connoisseurs of bananas. By placing the keyword phrases "bananas" and "banana connoisseur " along side other keywords such as the singular words, "ripe", "fresh" and "delicious", the sentence is crafted to help the search engine see a relationship between these words. Subsequent sentences would also have keywords and phrases weaved into them. 

One thing to keep in mind when writing page copy is unnecessary repetition of keywords, known as "keyword stuffing, is often considered spam by search engines, and might count against the website in terms of search engine rankings. For example, "Bananas supplied by the banana company Weston Banana Emporium are the tastiest bananas available to the banana connoisseur, and are always ripe bananas, fresh bananas, and delicious bananas. So we say or bananas bananas bananas today", could be penalized for overuse of the keyword banana.

Another thing to remember is that ultimately, the written copy is meant to be read by human eyes as well as search crawler. Read your copy out loud. Does is make sense and sound natural? If not, you've overdone the use of keyword phrases and need to make adjustments.

Another important element a crawler examines when reading the site (and later relating the content to user queries), is the anchor text used in internal links. Using relevant keyword phrases in the anchor text is a basic SEO technique aimed at solidifying the search engine's perception of the relationship between pages and the words used in the link. 

Remember, the foundation of successfully optimizing your site is simplicity. The goal is to make a site easy to find, easy to follow, and easy to read for search spiders and live-visitors, with well written topical content and relevant incoming links. While basic SEO can be time consuming in the early stages, the results are worth the effort and set the stage for more advanced future work.

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