Summary: In all the enthusiasm to get a website online, it is easy to forget the characteristics that make it easy for a search engine crawler to rank a site. When search engine optimization is done properly, the website is designed with certain physical characteristics that make it easier for a search engine crawler to “read” a website and figure out what to do with it. In this article some of those design considerations are discussed.

In all the enthusiasm to get a website online, it is easy to overlook the search engine optimization of it. When search engine optimization is done properly, the website is designed with certain physical characteristics that make it easier for a search engine crawler to “read” a website and figure out what to do with it. Here are some of the elements of good web page design that contribute to the site’s search engine optimization:

Consider the domain name in search engine optimization of your site. If you can get a domain name that has your main keywords in it then this is the best for search engine optimization of your website. For example, if your business sells green widgets, you could choose a domain name like green-widgets.com. In your page content, you focus on the keyword phrase “green widgets.” So when the search engine crawler “reads” your website, it sees the domain name and the keyword-rich content and can figure out easily how to index it. Keep in mind also that greenwidgets.com is not as effective as green-widgets.com in that the search engine crawler cannot figure out the two distinct words in greenwidgets.com whereas it can in green-widgets.com. The dash in this case acts as a word separator.

Use text in the body content of your web pages. Part of search engine optimization is making sure that your web pages are human/machine-readable ASCII text—not text embedded in Flash graphics or images. The search engine crawler can only read text.

Use the DESCRIPTION tag in your web page for search engine optimization. The description tag is found in the underlying source code of your website. It tells the search engine crawler what your site is all about and the description text gets used as the short summary for a site listed from search page results.

Use your website’s keywords to name files, directories, and images. Search engine optimization considers that the search engine crawler “reads” everything about the web page to help it determine how to classify your site in its index. So when the files, image names, and subdirectories all have your keywords included, it clues the crawler as to what your site is about. You can also use keywords in the ALT text of your images.

Think carefully before using Flash on your web pages. There is a debate over the effect of Macromedia Flash objects on web pages in search engine optimization. One side of the argument believes because the text in a Flash object is not actual machine-readable text that it cannot be optimized. The other side of the argument continues to come up with innovative ways to integrate Flash without harming search engine optimization efforts. The topic of Flash, web pages, and search engine optimization is very in-depth but if you are the type who likes to keep it simple and get your site optimized quicker then don’t worry about Flash for now.

Don’t do keyword spamming. While keyword phrases are important, too many of them can be detrimental in search engine optimization because it alerts the search engine crawler that you might be overusing the keywords to gain an unfair page ranking advantage. Your site could get penalized by the search engine for this. Stick to keyword percentages of 2 to 5% of the total content of a page.

Summary: Search engine crawlers rank websites that are popular higher. And part of the criteria it uses to do this is determining how many backlinks are out there for the site being evaluated for indexing. In fact, backlinks are more important to the search engine crawlers than keyword-rich website content. This article looks at good linking strategies in SEO.

Search engine crawlers rank websites that are popular with a higher ranking or what is called Page Rank by Google. And part of the criteria it uses to do this is determining how many backlinks are out there for the site being evaluated for indexing. So it is important for search engine optimization that good quality backlinks are acquired for your site. In fact, backlinks are more important to the search engine crawlers than keyword-rich website content. What are good linking strategies to use when running your site through search engine optimization? Let’s take a look at some:

The quantity of backlinks is important to search engine optimization. We will discuss backlink quality for search engine optimization in the next paragraph but you can think of each backlink to your website as a point in favor of your site. The search engine crawler determines that if a site has numerous links pointing back to it then it must be popular and search engine optimization focuses on this principle. What is even better in search engine optimization is when those same backlinks contain your site’s theme keywords.

Relevant backlinks are quality backlinks in search engine optimization. It is best if you get links back to your website on other websites that are relevant to yours. The idea behind this concept is that you want to bring in targeted traffic to your website. Let’s say you have a website for a surfing instruction school in Costa Rica. You may have just set up your surfing school but no one knows about it until you advertise. An effective search engine optimization strategy for your surfing school is to have a link to it posted on various tourism and travel sites advertising Costa Rica vacations. The idea that someone looking to vacation in Costa Rica and who has an interest in surfing will click on the link to your surfing school. We would say those backlinks are relevant in search engine optimization because they bring in targeted traffic.

Look for places to get backlinks to your web site for search engine optimization. So where do you find websites who are willing to place your link on their site? One place to look is at websites that are linking to those you are in competition with. You would find these sites, contact them, and request to have a link to your site. Keep in mind that internet marketing is very important these days and many informational and commercial sites are run solely for the purpose of generating advertising revenue. They may charge you a fee to post your link.

There are however a few sites that allow you to place a backlink to your site for free making them economical for search engine optimization. For example, if you are part of a discussion forum, the forum site usually has a policy for adding your link to the footer area of your posts without spamming the forum. Craigslist.com is a free ad service and you can also put backlinks to your site in your ads.

Avoid using link farms to cheat the search engine crawler. Have you ever searched for something on the internet and when you went to the page you found it only had a conglomeration of links and irrelevant links on one page? If you are like most, you had a big letdown when you saw the page was useless to you. This is what is known as a link farm and some who try to do search engine optimization for a website will use this to try to make the search engine crawlers think there are numerous backlinks to the site being optimized. Today, search engine crawlers like Google have devised filtering schemes to identify these link farms and in some cases an entire domain can get removed from Google’s index as a penalty for using link farms in search engine optimization.