Schewanick Computer Services

There are many ways that you can improve the probability of achieving
higher search engine rankings.

The most effective way is to consider how search engines rank your pages
- during the 'planning' phase of developing your site.

Most issues that adversely effect search engine ranking are in-built during
the design, and are more difficult to remove once the design is complete.
Consider that most web design contracts are fulfilled when a site is posted
to the web, looks as intended and is functional. What happens to your site
beyond this is not the concern of the people who designed your site, their
work is complete. So if you are fortunate enough to be at the 'specification'
stage of planning a web site, there are a few simple things that you should
do.

Ask the designer specifically what steps he or she will implement to ensure
your site is 'search engine friendly'. If you pre-arm yourself with a little
knowledge of the subject, you can easily gauge from their reaction just how
well your site will be prepared for search engine submissions. You are not
looking for guaranteed top 10 positions at this stage. You are looking for
some evidence that the designer understands the basics of how search
engines work, how they 'crawl' your pages, and what they do with the
information that they retrieve. If their reaction does not instill confidence
that your site will be designed with consideration towards the search
engines, you have one of two choices:- go elsewhere and seek the services
of a company who can demonstrate reasonable knowledge of the subject,
or take it upon yourself to lay down the basic guidelines to your designer.

The basic guidelines are:

Include all the important Meta tags on each page. Keywords,
Description and Title tags should be included as a minimum, and
each should be set to focus on the content of the specific page,
remaining where possible within the 'theme' of the site.
Add 'robot instruction' tags indicating which pages should be indexed
by the search engines and which should not. If you have pages that
detract from the overall theme of the site, use the 'noindex',
'nofollow' tags.
Avoid using 'Meta Refresh' tags that are set to automatically direct
the viewer to another page. If you must use 'refresh' set the time to a
minimum of 15 seconds.
Design a navigation structure that allows search engines to crawl the
important content pages from the home page. This can be done
easily using transparent image files and setting them as hyperlinks.
Remember that using Java, Flash software or 'Frames' to facilitate
navigation, can often present a 'closed door' to search engines,
preventing key areas of your site from being indexed.
Use the alt-attribute and name images descriptively. Some search
engines read the alt text and it can help, though marginally.
Name pages using keywords. Instead of 'page2.html' use
'american-ginseng.html', if your site is about herbal products!
If your site uses 'Frames' there are important techniques that go
beyond the scope of this report. Many search engines cannot
navigate through the Framed section of a site, unless the Frames are
prepared in a specific way. As a minimum, ensure your designer
includes a detailed description about your business, products or
services on the 'noframes' page, and ask them to research more
specific information about Frames and search engines.
If the site is designed using dynamic content pages as with ASP,
consider designing additional pages that use static HTML. Having
an 'about us' page in HTML is always a good strategy when using
dynamic content pages or 'active server pages'.

These are some of the basics to consider when designing a web site.

Consider also, 'who will submit your site to the search engines once the
design is complete?'. Some of the design companies offering this service
use 'bulk submission' software, which in many cases can be ineffective. We
recommend that the first time you submit your site to the 'leading' search
engines you do it manually. Take the time to follow the instructions
carefully. On directory sites like Yahoo and the Open Directory, you
should only submit your site one time, so get it right.

The last point is 'Hosting'. If you are serious about your web business, try
to avoid free-host sites. Most of them use redirection scripts that some of
the search engines cannot follow. If you are considering a 'Mall' site, or
any site that is 'template' based, find out the constraints that they impose
on the information you can post to the site. Many will allow only basic text,
product and image loading to the site, and may not allow you to load
'optimized' HTML pages.

Having a web site is all about 'exposure', and search engines provide the
most effective vehicle for delivering your site to the masses. On average,
businesses spend around $1500 on improving search engine rankings,
usually following a period of being 'lost in the wilderness' of the Internet. In
many cases, careful design is all that is required, and it need only add
around $200 to the initial design cost of the web site.

If your site is already online then the above techniques can still be applied
retrospectively, though making changes is more difficult than getting it
right the first time.

About the Author
Carl Hruza - works as an Independent Consultant, and operates the web
business TopWebPromotion.
Email at carl@topwebpromotion.com
http://topwebpromotion.com