This article reveals several important web design elements you must consider during website optimization process.
1. CSS Stylesheet
You should use external CSS stylesheet so that your HTML coding becomes consise, and mainly compose of your website content.
2. Content Management Software (CMS)
It gives you flexibility in optimizing website content.
a. Allows you to define Title and Meta tags for different web pages. Again, it gives you flexibility in optimizing every web page.
b. Allows you to generate static HTML pages instead of dynamic pages. Search engines are not good at reading dynamic web page. If your web pages cannot get indexed, you definitely get no rankings no matter how many SEO effort you make.
3. HTML Code Compliance
As a good web design practice, make sure your HTML coding is compliant to some well recognized HTML standards such as W3C standard. Some search engine optimizers reported that non-compliant web design could cause difficulties for search engines to index and analyze your website. It hinders your website to get top search engine ranking.
4. Multiple-level Navigation Menu
Many websites use multiple-level navigation menu in Javascript. I recommend seperate Javascrpt from HTML coding by using external Javascript file. For example, Marketshare - an Asia consumer market research firm, found that their website cannot get indexed properly by several search engines.
5. Bad Web Design
To make your web design search engine friendly, you must consider avoiding:
Search engines have difficulties to index all your frameset. For some reasons, web designers may make some re-direct pages or adopt Javascript re-direct techniques and re-direct visitors from one page to another content pages. Since search engine spammers usually use this technique, search engines could penalize your website.
6. Flash
Web designers may sell you to build a flash website or make a flash intro page as your home page. Their point is that flash makes your website more appealing and it would improve effectiveness of your website. Flash sometimes could make your website slow and require visitors to install plugins before they can see your website. In terms of SEO, simply speaking, search engines treat flash as a graphic and cannot analyze content inside a flash file. The implication means a flash website is hard to get top search engine ranking.
A. How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.
1. Size Matters.
The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content, so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it's difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales.
2. Graphics-Based Web Sites.
While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you really must offer the visitor a graphics-heavy or Flash* web site, consider creating an HTML-based side of your site that is also available to visitors. This site will be much easier to promote on the search engines and your new found visitors will also have the option to jump over to the nicer looking part of your site.
* Author update - As of July 2008 Google has updated their algorithm to take advantage of Adobe's searchable SWF library, enabling the indexing of Flash content for the first time.
3. Dynamic Web Pages.
If most of your web site is generated by a large database (such as a large book dealer with stock that is changing by the minute) you may find that some of your pages do not get indexed by major search engines. One way to combat this problem is to offer a search engine friendly site map listing all your static pages just to let them know that you do have permanent content on your site. If search engines see links going to and from these dynamic pages within a good internal linking system, this may also lead to the pages getting indexed.
4. Proper Use of HTML.
The more efficiently written web sites usually achieve higher rankings. Our choice for web design software is Adobe Dreamweaver, as it is an industry standard. It also makes using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) a breeze, which can drastically cut down on the amount of text formatting in HTML code. Hand-coding HTML to design sites is also a good method if you are proficient enough.
5. Choosing a Domain Name.
The golden rule to web development of any kind is to keep your visitors in mind above all else - even search engine optimization. When choosing a domain name, one should pick either your business name (if you have a high-profile business name such as Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a brief description of your products. Domain names can always help with search engine optimization, as it is another area of your web site that important keywords can appear. It allows you to keep your existing rankings for your old domain name, while forwarding visitors to your new web site instantly.
6. Using Frames.
Don't use frames. The search engines that are able to index your site through frames will most likely frown upon them. Bookmarking of individual pages within a frame becomes difficult without lengthy scripts being written.
7. Update Your Information.
Web sites that continuously update and grow their web sites usually experience higher rankings than stagnant sites when dealing with an industry that experiences a high rate of growth or change. While the age of a web page is looked at as part of a search engine algorithm, it has no bearing on searches for items recently in the news. Consider creating a section of your site devoted to news within your organization, or have a constantly updated blog.
Many shortfalls of web sites can easily be attributed to designers who just don't keep the user or search engines in mind. Search engine algorithms are quickly improving to try and list the most user-friendly sites higher, given that the content and link popularity are there to back it up. So first and foremost, know your target market and make your web site work for them before focusing on search engine optimization.
B. What Kind of Web Design Software Should You Use? A Web Editors Or Site Builder?
Do you want to build a web site for your home business but find web design complicated? You can find many web design tools online to help you design your own web site quickly and inexpensively. They range from web editors, web site builders, web site templates, to hosting, autoresponders and shopping carts. If you want to design your first web site yourself, you probably want to use a WYSIWYG web editor or site builder.
A web editor is software that creates the HTML code for you. Web editors and site builders help you quickly create simple web sites without the need to know HTML programming and without having to buy expensive web design software.
A WYSIWYG editor helps you design your web site using a "What You See Is What You Get" interface. Some of the many good free WYSIWYG web editors that are available on the web include KompoZer, HTML-Kit, SeaMonkey Composer (Mozilla), Amaya and Trellian.
Even when using a web editor, it helps to learn the basics of HTML to solve some design problems and make changes. Paid editors will give you more powerful features. Dreamweaver is the most popular professional web editor today but has a steep learning curve. FrontPage is popular for non-professional users. Site Builders help you design your site from pre-packaged templates. Using a site builder is an easy way to get your first web site up fast.
Advantages of site builders include: no HTML web design knowledge is required; they typically include pre-designed web site templates; you can upload the site easily without the need of an FTP program to upload your pages; they usually come with an image library where you can download free images, templates, backgrounds and web site headers; you can upload your own images.
Free site builders usually have restrictions that may include a limited amount of pages, you may not be allowed to include custom HTML, and you have less options for customizing your template and page layout than you have with commercial site builders.
Free web site builders include 1&1 Website Builder, Office Live Small Business, Site2you and website Wizard. Many hosting companies offer template-based site builders and wizards that will guide you through setting up your web pages. Using those makes it easy to start creating web pages. Wizards allow you to create web sites easily through point and click design. Typically, they work like this: You can choose a layout from their library of web site templates. If you want to design your own web site, try some of the options above.
1. CSS Stylesheet
You should use external CSS stylesheet so that your HTML coding becomes consise, and mainly compose of your website content.
2. Content Management Software (CMS)
It gives you flexibility in optimizing website content.
a. Allows you to define Title and Meta tags for different web pages. Again, it gives you flexibility in optimizing every web page.
b. Allows you to generate static HTML pages instead of dynamic pages. Search engines are not good at reading dynamic web page. If your web pages cannot get indexed, you definitely get no rankings no matter how many SEO effort you make.
3. HTML Code Compliance
As a good web design practice, make sure your HTML coding is compliant to some well recognized HTML standards such as W3C standard. Some search engine optimizers reported that non-compliant web design could cause difficulties for search engines to index and analyze your website. It hinders your website to get top search engine ranking.
4. Multiple-level Navigation Menu
Many websites use multiple-level navigation menu in Javascript. I recommend seperate Javascrpt from HTML coding by using external Javascript file. For example, Marketshare - an Asia consumer market research firm, found that their website cannot get indexed properly by several search engines.
5. Bad Web Design
To make your web design search engine friendly, you must consider avoiding:
Search engines have difficulties to index all your frameset. For some reasons, web designers may make some re-direct pages or adopt Javascript re-direct techniques and re-direct visitors from one page to another content pages. Since search engine spammers usually use this technique, search engines could penalize your website.
6. Flash
Web designers may sell you to build a flash website or make a flash intro page as your home page. Their point is that flash makes your website more appealing and it would improve effectiveness of your website. Flash sometimes could make your website slow and require visitors to install plugins before they can see your website. In terms of SEO, simply speaking, search engines treat flash as a graphic and cannot analyze content inside a flash file. The implication means a flash website is hard to get top search engine ranking.
A. How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.
1. Size Matters.
The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content, so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it's difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales.
2. Graphics-Based Web Sites.
While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you really must offer the visitor a graphics-heavy or Flash* web site, consider creating an HTML-based side of your site that is also available to visitors. This site will be much easier to promote on the search engines and your new found visitors will also have the option to jump over to the nicer looking part of your site.
* Author update - As of July 2008 Google has updated their algorithm to take advantage of Adobe's searchable SWF library, enabling the indexing of Flash content for the first time.
3. Dynamic Web Pages.
If most of your web site is generated by a large database (such as a large book dealer with stock that is changing by the minute) you may find that some of your pages do not get indexed by major search engines. One way to combat this problem is to offer a search engine friendly site map listing all your static pages just to let them know that you do have permanent content on your site. If search engines see links going to and from these dynamic pages within a good internal linking system, this may also lead to the pages getting indexed.
4. Proper Use of HTML.
The more efficiently written web sites usually achieve higher rankings. Our choice for web design software is Adobe Dreamweaver, as it is an industry standard. It also makes using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) a breeze, which can drastically cut down on the amount of text formatting in HTML code. Hand-coding HTML to design sites is also a good method if you are proficient enough.
5. Choosing a Domain Name.
The golden rule to web development of any kind is to keep your visitors in mind above all else - even search engine optimization. When choosing a domain name, one should pick either your business name (if you have a high-profile business name such as Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a brief description of your products. Domain names can always help with search engine optimization, as it is another area of your web site that important keywords can appear. It allows you to keep your existing rankings for your old domain name, while forwarding visitors to your new web site instantly.
6. Using Frames.
Don't use frames. The search engines that are able to index your site through frames will most likely frown upon them. Bookmarking of individual pages within a frame becomes difficult without lengthy scripts being written.
7. Update Your Information.
Web sites that continuously update and grow their web sites usually experience higher rankings than stagnant sites when dealing with an industry that experiences a high rate of growth or change. While the age of a web page is looked at as part of a search engine algorithm, it has no bearing on searches for items recently in the news. Consider creating a section of your site devoted to news within your organization, or have a constantly updated blog.
Many shortfalls of web sites can easily be attributed to designers who just don't keep the user or search engines in mind. Search engine algorithms are quickly improving to try and list the most user-friendly sites higher, given that the content and link popularity are there to back it up. So first and foremost, know your target market and make your web site work for them before focusing on search engine optimization.
B. What Kind of Web Design Software Should You Use? A Web Editors Or Site Builder?
Do you want to build a web site for your home business but find web design complicated? You can find many web design tools online to help you design your own web site quickly and inexpensively. They range from web editors, web site builders, web site templates, to hosting, autoresponders and shopping carts. If you want to design your first web site yourself, you probably want to use a WYSIWYG web editor or site builder.
A web editor is software that creates the HTML code for you. Web editors and site builders help you quickly create simple web sites without the need to know HTML programming and without having to buy expensive web design software.
A WYSIWYG editor helps you design your web site using a "What You See Is What You Get" interface. Some of the many good free WYSIWYG web editors that are available on the web include KompoZer, HTML-Kit, SeaMonkey Composer (Mozilla), Amaya and Trellian.
Even when using a web editor, it helps to learn the basics of HTML to solve some design problems and make changes. Paid editors will give you more powerful features. Dreamweaver is the most popular professional web editor today but has a steep learning curve. FrontPage is popular for non-professional users. Site Builders help you design your site from pre-packaged templates. Using a site builder is an easy way to get your first web site up fast.
Advantages of site builders include: no HTML web design knowledge is required; they typically include pre-designed web site templates; you can upload the site easily without the need of an FTP program to upload your pages; they usually come with an image library where you can download free images, templates, backgrounds and web site headers; you can upload your own images.
Free site builders usually have restrictions that may include a limited amount of pages, you may not be allowed to include custom HTML, and you have less options for customizing your template and page layout than you have with commercial site builders.
Free web site builders include 1&1 Website Builder, Office Live Small Business, Site2you and website Wizard. Many hosting companies offer template-based site builders and wizards that will guide you through setting up your web pages. Using those makes it easy to start creating web pages. Wizards allow you to create web sites easily through point and click design. Typically, they work like this: You can choose a layout from their library of web site templates. If you want to design your own web site, try some of the options above.
An awesome post.Really informative.Thanks for sharing it.In my opinion having a strong hierarchical structure in your website navigation design is best practice even beyond to the impact on search engine rankings.