Can People Find My Site in Google ?
Can Google and Yahoo read your website pages ? If not then your pages won't show to people searching for your products and services. Here we provide an easy to follow guide on how to make sure your pages are found. Making sure that your website has been created correctly is essential to its success. Sadly this is often overlooked by agencies making websites. This should be an integral part of creating a website, otherwise there's no point making the investment.
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have automated programs (called bots, or previously known as spiders) which read website pages. The bots pick out words contained in website pages, and creates indexes for those words. Anyone searching for words or terms appearing in your website should be able to find a link to your website in the search engine results page (SERP = search engine result page). In an ideal world your website would show in the first page of search results, as not many people venture past those first few result pages. It's therefore really important to make sure the search engine bots can read and index your website pages in an optimal way, which is where the term Search Engine Optimisation comes from. Fancy that !
1. Create SEO Friendly Site Design
Making your pages easy to find should be top of your list of marketing priorities. Try to avoid using Flash, frames, dynamic URLs, Javascript or image maps. These elements make it much harder, and sometimes impossible, for search engines to read your pages. Take Flash for example: search engines cannot read these mini movies at all, so any content in them cannot be seen. If you already have a website using these design elements then check out Microsoft's Small Business Centre for tips on making the most of what you have.
2. Optimise Website Tags
The basis of a website page is created using HTML. What does that mean ? Well when you create a document you'd normally open Word and just type it, making use of the text formatting tools like bullet lists, different fonts and indentation. Website pages are created using tags which determine how they will look, eg <title>Shocking Example</title> shows an example of how a page title is created. Notice an opening and closing tag, the closing tag has a forward slash '/'. Now that's the technical blurb over with, let's look at what to do with it.
Search engines attach great importance to the different tags in your pages, some more than others. The title and the headers are the most important. You can see examples of these tags in the picture above, where you can also see the hierarchy of <h1> and <h2> headers. There are also <h3>, <h4> , etc headers. Be sure that you make very good use of these and put the main keywords for your website page in these tags. The more words you use, the more diluted the importance, so remember that less is more. Also list your words in order of importance as there are cut-off points in the length of characters that may be used and displayed. The text that appears towards the top of your page has more relevance for the search engines, so be sure to make use of keywords in your breadcrumb links and especially in the opening paragraph.
3. Use of Meta Tags
Some search engines, including Google and Yahoo, use and display the <meta description> that they find in your website pages. Choose this text wisely because this is what will entice someone to visit your website over the competition !
The META Description Tag is placed at the top of the website page, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags. Here's the one used in the picture above:
<meta name="description" content="Specialists in internet solutions for small businesses: website design, online web shops, e-commerce, boost search engine rankings, send professional looking newsletters and boost sales with targeted e-mail marketing. Dotcom Kiosk is a specialist in connecting small businesses to the internet and providing affordable, professional services to promote business on the web" />
The META keywords tag is no longer used for ranking by Google, but it is currently used by Yahoo, so should be included.
4. Friendly Navigation
Some navigation is not search engine friendly, meaning the bots can't read it and can't follow the links to the rest of your site. Examples of unfriendly navigation are Flash navigation and Javascript navigation. If you're using either of these, make sure that you provide alternative links along the bottom of your pages. You can also improve the chances of the bots reading all of your pages by including a sitemap and a link to it from your home page. We recommend using this really good, free service: XML-Sitemaps.com
5. Using Keywords in Links
We mentioned it already, but let's mention it again as this is important: the links you use to other pages in your site should contain keywords. Like this: useful website promotion tips , instead of something non-descriptive like this: click here ! Your pages will get better ranking if you use keywords in your links, and that includes keywords in links on other sites that point to your website.
6. Graphics
Using quality graphics is an excellent way to support your website's credibility. Take full advantage of any pictures used by including your keywords in the <img> tag's <alt> description. This is especially important when you are selling products and have product pictures. Use the product keywords to help people find them.
7. Don't be Spammy !
Be sure to create quality content that people will not only want to read once, but again and again. Ensuring that your site visitors come back again and hopefully tell their friends about your website will do wonders for its success. Be careful not to stuff your pages so full of keywords that it becomes 'spammy' as this will ensure a sharp exit by new visitors. Keyword stuffing also runs the risk of your website becoming banned from the search engines: they do not want to send people to a spammed page as they themselves will start to lose credibility.
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The advice throughout the project has been second to none, Dotcom Kiosk have been on hand round the clock to answer any queries we may have, from basic issues right through to detailed walk through guides for complex alterations to the website
- Charlie Penrose, Truro Arts