FW: NEW THINKING: 11 search engine optimization tips

[Robert Holmes]

>From a knowledge management mailing list that keeps sending me stuff. I'd
heard that search engines don't like Flash, but avoiding dynamic HTML was a
new one on me.

Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerry McGovern [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 7:20 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: NEW THINKING: 11 search engine optimization tips

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NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING By Gerry
McGovern - http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
 <snip>
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11 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION TIPS

The title tag is critical. It's important not to overcomplicate your design
and technical approach with things such as Flash, Java, frames and
dynamically built websites.

The title tag is critical
The title tag is the single most important piece of content for people who
search:
1) Keep it short: Don't have more than 60 characters (with spaces), which is
roughly 8-10 words.
2) Lead with the most important careword for that particular page.
Always start off with what is specific about the page and move to what is
general. Many websites begin their title with their brand or organization
name, and then follow with what is unique about the page. (This is a very
common mistake, so check out your website.)

The description tag is recommended
The description tag is not nearly as important as the title.
However, it does have some value. Write it as a summary and keep it under
thirty words. It should be written in a compelling, clear manner.

Light pages, and lean, quality HTML
The less HTML code you have, the better, as it makes it easier and faster
for the search engine to index your page. Aim for a total page weight of 50
KB for any page (that's including graphics). Certainly, anything over 100 KB
is going to be slow, and some search engines don't like pages that are over
100 KB.


Have a site map/index
People like site maps/indexes, and so do search engines. Make sure that the
site map is available from the homepage, that it is presented in a
text-based format, and that it is kept up to date.

Avoid Flash
I've nothing against Flash design except for the fact that I generally
detest it. It's such a waste of time; fourth rate TV advertising by people
who will never get the chance to do a real TV ad. Search engines don't like
Flash either, and find it very hard to index Flash-based pages.

Build your website in static HTML
You don't need a "dynamic" website unless you have dynamic content, such as
airline seat availability and pricing which needs to be dynamically
published from a database because it constantly changes. You may store your
website in a database but you're better off publishing it as a static HTML
website. It's cheaper, the pages will download faster, and search engines
will find it easier to comprehensively index your website.

Avoid PDFs
One of the sure signs of a badly managed website is that it has lots of
PDFs. Publishing content in PDF is usually a shortcut.
Search engines have got better at indexing PDFs but it is still recommended
that you publish a heading and summary in HTML.

Avoid frames
Frames are a very bad idea.

Watch your JavaScript
Any links that you have in JavaScript should also be published in HTML,
otherwise the search engine won't be able to follow those links. Rollovers
are cool but they cause nothing but problems, so unless you have a brilliant
technical team, avoid them.

Alternative text
As a rule you should have alternative text for every single image. However,
the only alternative text that search engines recognize is for those images
that are linked. Make sure you use descriptive, careword-rich text.

Keyword tags
Over the years, some websites tried to trick search engines by stuffing
keyword tags with lots of popular words. Because of this, most search
engines give very little value to keyword tags

Gerry McGovern
<mailto:[hidden email]>


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