In order to ensure a websites greatest chance at search engine success, it needs to be properly optimized for search engines from the start. Certainly, we can always go in after the fact and optimize a site that has not been optimized yet, but the job is far easier when the web designer thought ahead to include good SEO structure during development.
Good SEO structure could be thought of as the foundation that you lay when building a house. It is much easier to put in a basement before you put a house there! Good SEO is the same. If you put the structure in place early on, it is much easier and faster to drop in properly researched keywords later on. If the structure is poor to begin with, it can be a bigger, shakier job to shore it up.
I won’t code anything without this basic structure. All new projects that I start include well formed HTML and good SEO structure. This doesn’t neccessarliy mean that my client purchased SEO services. It means, that if in the future they do purchase SEO services, from me or from anyone else, that person will have a much easier time optimizing the site, and they can spend more time on research, and less time on trying to fix the sites structure. I think whoever is doing the job will appreciate that.
Make sure your developer knows this stuff because this is very basic and should be considered early on:
- Start off with POSH (plain old simple html) – A good foundation starts with good structure. Use properly formed html structure that is standards compliant and make proper use of <h1>, <h2> and <p> tags. Upon this base, all else is built.
- Title tags – The title tag is widely considered to be the most important tag on your page when it comes to search engines. This tag will weigh the heaviest as spiders index your page, so be sure to use your strongest keywords or keyword groups. Be sure each page has a unique title tag that is relevant to the page.
- Description meta tag - Perhaps the next most important tag to the title, is the description tag. This is what users see on a search results page under the main link to your page. Be sure to write a description of you page in the form of a couple of sentences or three.
- Keyword meta tag - Not as important as they used to be, but still can’t hurt to put these in and optimize them. Some engines still use them.
- Dynamic meta tags – Platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Magento and OscMax often have additional plug-ins that can be installed and configured to automatically create all of the important meta tags on the fly using information pulled from the page. This is actually very good, as the meta tags are very relevant to the page content. Ask your developer about these for your site.
There is certainly much more to learn on this subject, but it is outside the scope of this post to delve into that. To learn more about SEO, check out the most excellent book: Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day
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Hi, I'm Jason Marshall, and this is the home page for all things me. Dig deeper to learn about my work, and find why after 12 years in the business of Web design, SEO, and Online Marketing, I'm still learning and still having fun! The world of Web design definitely keeps me on my toes, and it is a highly interesting and fast changing industry; and it's easy to become immpersed in it. I take it in stride as I continue to attend college online at The Art institute of Pittsburgh studying Web Design and Interactive Media. This type of formal training was not available when I started, we all had to learn as we went. A little formal training in exactly the right places never hurt anyone!
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There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
Thanks! I know there is a LOT more to know about this. But I think business owners need to start learning this stuff. At least the basics. Otherwise, they are leaving money on the table!