Findings the needles in the haystacks
Search Engine Optimization. Simply means designing and coding your website to maximize "searchability". SEO techniques will try to push your website onto the first page of any search engine (google,yahoo,bing etc). This forms a critical part of your web marketing strategy. How often do you continue to search past page 5 of returned searches? Neither will your customers.
Some of the key points to ensure a "search friendly" site:
- Keywords
Make sure you monitor what your visitors are searching for. Build a relevant keyword list and keep it current. - Page Titles
Make sure you have consistient and relevant titles on all your pages. - Metatags
These little tags provide vital information to the search engines. The description tag should contain a summary statement of your site. - Page Headings
Headings are coded with "h1", "h2" tags. These will be used to determine if your content is relevant to a particular search. - Links
Build as many relevant links to your site as possible. This increases your search importance to the engines - Use SEO tools
Make sure to create sitemaps and register them with the major engines - HTML/CSS Validation
Your website should validate cleanly to latest standards
