Image by karlmfoxley via Flickr

Content is King (old saying, but never fails you!)

If you are searching in the engines, you are looking for something specific usually, something that requires information given to you so thought should be given to the words users would type to find a specific topic. With search engine ranking each page must include appropriate words within it, but do not stuff the page with these words! Search engines are getting smarter, regardless if using the giant Google, or the more local Sensis, and will find related terms such as “hairdresser” for “barber” and word derivation like “play / playing” and usually cover typos / spelling errors also! Keyword stuffing will only hurt your search engine ranking.

Content Checklist

• Create information that is useful. A content rich site that clearly and accurately describes your topics.

• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content or links. Search engines can’t read images, and neither can people with visual disabilities. (use alt in the img tag <img src=”myimage.jpg” alt=”My Keywords” /> )

• Make your topics original, or atleast make the content itself original! Research first to make sure you are not duplicating!

• If you offer a page that is lengthy, consider breaking it up into parts. The users will enjoy reading as they do not get overwhelmed with information. Search engines will also have a better chance of targeting each page more specifically!

• Say what you need to say, and say no more! Don’t deviate from the topic at hand, if you need to, then make a seperate page and link to it!

• Email… what you say? Email your content to be proof read (avoid printing, I like trees!). Getting another opinion can only benefit you. Newspapers won’t publish crap stories, search engines won’t rank crap high either (unless you search for it!).

• By providing links to similar stories/web pages you not only offer your readers more quality content, but you are iterating to the search engines what it is about.

• Referencing citations and sources indicates to search engines that the content is that of research quality.

• Illegal content within a page will most likely result in that page’s omission from search engines and more than likely your web-host also!

Content Summary

Search engine ranking is not rocket science, and search engines will know this page is not about “rocket science”! Place your energy and time into creating content that is of use to people… the humans of the internet, not the robots of search engines! Search engines are made for humans to be the end users, not themselves!

Related Search Engine Ranking articles

• Why It’s Important To Choose The Right SEO Company (webmanmarketing.com)
• Get Social Network Data In Your Google Results With Social Search (makeuseof.com)
• Ten Tips for Top Search Engine Ranking (ronmedlin.com)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

When deciding on how you could improve search engine ranking within the major search engines (google, yahoo, bing, sensis and other Australian search engines), it would be easy to talk all day about design for search engine effectiveness… but I won’t. Let’s just make a few points for you to consider.

Design Checklist

• Site maps! A page with links that point to important parts of your site. A note here is if you have a site map that contains more than 100 links, break it up into seperate pages so the major players don’t think you are some kind of link farm!

• Always have at least one link to any page. If you have a page that has no internal link….. how do you expect the search engines to find it?

• Frames really don’t serve much purpose for internal content and search engines really do struggle with them, still! They are still good for sponors/external promotions etc.

• Macromedia flash as well as Java applets should be kept to a minimum. These really can add useful animations to a site, but they are not indexed by most search engines. (videos are great content though!)

• URL’s must be neat and clean! Who can remember URL’s like www.stretch-it.net/index.php?id=234&cat=234vsd45&erf=abcdef&wtf-is-this=I-dont-know and how will search engines know what it means?

• Site hierarchy. Make sure ANY PAGE is only 1 to 3 clicks away from your home page. Humans love this as it is easy, google loves this because it is good for humans!

• Dynamic pages (pages that load content on each visit) can often cause the relevant keywords to, loose relevancy. By moving this content to static pages to improve indexing and lighten the load on the Web server will help maintain longevity.

• A no brainer here, but often forgotton. A link to your home page from every internal page is a must!

• Meta tags. The page TITLE is used by search engines to display link text as the result of a search. The description is used to display as search engine result content. Think of these two elements as advertising. (some search engines still use these for ranking also!)
• By organising your content by topic, and then dividing the site into logical sections, with each section focusing on a given topic will allow search engines to better target specific information relevant to keyword searches.

Designing to improve search engine ranking

To summarise, have you ever read a book? Have you noticed that books are really, really, really easy to navigate? Well a website should be no different! Your home page reads like that of a table of contents, sending your visitors to the relevant content and having it organised into the before mentioned sections! Images, scripts and videos should be used only when text can not fulfill the needs, but making sure to maintain the value of the given page.

Image by saar* via Flickr

Don’t get caught up in the search engine optimisation! People need content, easy navigation and a secure place to buy!
Google LOVE natural websites, so start by giving the content, we can fake other natural stuff later!

Don’t focus on the home page, keywords and titles.

The first step to sales when customers visit your site to see the products they were looking for. Of course, search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. Now your customer is at your site,  ensure that they get interested in your products or services and sticks around. Motivate them to buy the product or submit the form by providing clear and obvious information. Do you sell more than one product or service? Then provide all the necessary information about this, may be by keeping the information at a different page. By providing clearly tagged and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details with ease.

Understanding Your Target Customer

If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your customers are and what they want to buy, it is highly unlikely you are going to make much money. Website business can be an extension or it can be a replacement for a standard (offline business) storefront. You can send email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey or even while they are browsing on your website. Ask them about their choices. Why do they like your products? Do you discount prices or offer coupons? Are your prices consistently lower than others? Is your shipping price cheaper? Do you respond faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Your return policies and guarantees better than your competitor’s? To know your customer you can check credit card records or ask your customer to complete a simple contact form with name, address, age, gender, etc. when they purchase a product.

Does your website give enough contact information?

When you sell from a website, your customer can buy your products 24 hours a day and also your customers may be from other states that are thousands of miles away. Always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. When customer wants to buy online provide enough options like credit card, PayPal or other online payment service. One thing must ensure you offer your customers, is that you provide a secure area for making their transactions. Buyers will exit faster than you can say “but wait, there’s more!” if they think it is not secure.

Related Website Feature articles

• How Much of Your Website Do People See? Google’s Got a Tool to Tell You (mashable.com)
• Thinking an Online Store: 15 Tips To Get You Started (smallbusinessbranding.com)
• What is the most simple solution to process credit card payments and deliver digital goods? (startups.com)