Search Engine Readiness
Is your site "search engine friendly"? Do the keywords figure prominently in the title, description, body text, etc.?
Tips for Search Engine Readiness
- Does every page have a well-written title that incorporates targeted
keywords?
- The title appears in the window title bar, bookmark lists, and search engine result lists. Titles are also given more weight in relevancy ranking algorithms.
- Titles should be 60-80 characters. (<title>: the most important element of a quality Web page - Quality Web Tips)
- Four
Things Every Web Site Headline Must Do
- Make the reader feel he or she is in the right place
- Make the reader feel good and want to continue
- Appeal to the search engines
- Satisfy the needs of the company or organization
- Does every page have a unique description that also incorporates targeted keywords? Descriptions also sometimes appear in search engine result lists and are given more weight in relevancy ranking algorithms.
- Is there Heading 1 tag (<h1>) that includes targeted keywords on every page? (Use <h1> for top level heading - Quality Web Tips)
- Do the keywords appear in the body text? The most important keywords should appear at the top of the page. Write at least 200-250 words of visible text copy based on your chosen keywords. (Ten Tips to the Top of the Search Engines)
- Maximize keywords, but write naturally -- vary your keywords/phrases, read it out loud, and break up keyphrases. Writing for the visitor first and the engines second. (Increase the Power of Your Search Engine Copywriting)
- Does every image have an alt tag that includes keywords?
- Do links have link titles that include keywords?
- Does most anchor text also include keywords?
- Don't worry about keywords meta tag. See "Death Of A Meta Tag"
- To measure keyword density, try BeOnTop or Search Engine Buddy
Is your website code valid and optimized for search engines?
- Validate pages (Tidy, A Real Validator, or The W3C Markup Validation Service. See also
NetMechanic for browser
compatibility chart.)
- Creating valid HTML or XHTML documents means cleaner code and easier maintenance. See Site Valet - Why Validate? and Why Validate Your HTML.
- Are CSS and JavaScript in separate files? (See Tips
For Authoring Fast-loading HTML Pages)
- Internet Explorer treats external JavaScript and CSS files in much the same way as graphics, caching the files in case other pages use them. If the same CSS or JavaScript is used on multiple pages, the later pages will benefit from the cached copy already having been downloaded. That means your visitors will only need to download the files once. The more bloated your JavaScript, the better this load time improvement will be. (Put Your Web Pages on a Diet)
- If You Pick One Color, Pick Them All (If You Pick One Color, Pick Them All - Quality Web Tips)
- Set a base font-size for the document and use absolute size (xx-small | x-small | small | medium | large | x-large | xx-large) June 28, 2006 size for a particular element within the document. (Care With Font Size - Quality Web Tips)
- Avoid meta refresh tag, frames.
Landing pages
- Do PPC ads go to a specialized landing page? Specialized landing pages *without* regular site navigation get the highest conversion rates. Marketers who send traffic to their regular home page get pitiful conversion rates. Folks who deeplink but leave standard navigation are usually somewhere in the middle. (MarketingSherpa)
- For more information, see Landing Page Best Practices.
Call to Action
- For an example of clear, repeated call to action, see MoveOn.org's web page and email.
- For a good example of landing pages and targeted e-mails, see MarketingSherpa's John McKenzie Collection Event Campaign.
Poodle predictor is a tool that attempts to give you an idea of how your site will show up in the search-engine results.
AddWeb's Page Advisor Glossary
