Site Design for Better Search Engine
Positioning - Part I
Introduction
Ever designed a site, then submitted it, waited a month or two
to find that most of your pages haven't been indexed, or that only
the page submitted was indexed? Do you have a text-based
site map linked from every page? Did you design your entire
site in Flash? Have you written your pages to increase your listing
relevance? Does your site link to other sites containing information
on your site topic? Do other sites link to you that provide information
on your site topic? These are just some of the questions you need
to answer to discover why your site ranks where it does in search
results, and why your site is not indexed fully.
Text-Based Site Maps
Text
based site maps are one of your best ways to make sure that
your site is totally indexed. By making a page with text links to
every page on your site and linking that page from every page on
your site, you insure the indexing robots and spiders have a food
trail to lead them through every page of your site. This serves
an additional function especially if your sites are designed with
flash. The only language search engine bots and spiders are able
to interpret, from our research, is good old HTML. Since it can
not read flash, any text within flash sites is not indexable, so
the bots and spiders are not able to place your site in the appropriate
category. On this site, we have sitemap buttons, but the buttons
are also in Flash. What you don't see is the little transparent
gif at the bottom of the page that is linked directly to our site
map.
Using Flash
Popular suggestions for flash use on sites are to create smaller
flash files and place them throughout your site just like images.
That will allow you to create an engaging multimedia site while
still providing the text search engines need to rank your site relevance.
Also, be careful of the flash file sizes. If the files are too big,
it takes your pages longer to load. Keep in mind that the average
visitor will wait around 30 seconds for a page to load. If it takes
longer than that then the chances are your visitor is going to go
somewhere else. That does not mean that the WHOLE page has to load
in that time. As long as there is some text to read through to occupy
them while the page loads, they are engaged and not so quick to
move off somewhere else.
Page Relevance
To increase your page relevance you need to make sure to pay particular
attention to the page overall topic. When writing your pages, you
should make sure that you maintain the same topic throughout each
page. For example, if you are writing a page on editing jpeg images,
then make sure that you maintain that topic throughout that page.
If you ramble of on a tangent, then you are diluting the keywords
the search engines are pulling from your page, this reduces the
page relevance of your intended topic. Take for example the same
page on editing jpeg images. If you suddenly jump into paragraphs
on search engine positioning, then it is going to reduce the relevance
of that page for people searching for information on jpeg editing.
Link Popularity
Search engines are also using link popularity and link relevance
to list sites. Link popularity has to do with the sites that link
to you. In the older days of the net, it was possible to submit
your pages to hundreds and thousands of link pages therefore increasing
your link popularity. That would boost your listing with search
engines. The old thought was "If there were so many pages linking
to yours, then it must be a good resource of information".
The search engines would then rank those pages higher in search
results because they thought the pages were better quality and had
a better chance of pertaining to the searches done by their visitors.
Google has
recently implemented a strategy to stop webmasters who try to fool
their bots and spiders and gain better placement. This was done
by linking with hundreds and thousands of free link pages that have
nothing to do with their page or site topic. With the influence
Google has
on the net, I would look for more of the big name search engines
to incorporate some of the same kind of technology blocks
Google now has in place. It brings to mind the old saying, "Honesty
is the best policy". Avoid trying to fool the search engines
with tricks, just produce a good site with fresh original content.
Your site could be denied listing if you use practices to fool the
search engines.
Link Relevance
Link relevance has to do with the sites you link your page with.
For example, using the same example we used earlier with the editing
jpeg images page; you want to link to other pages pertaining to
jpeg image editing. This increases the credibility of your page.
If you linked that page to pages on search engine positioning then
you cause the search engine to question the credibility of your
page. After all, your page was about jpeg image editing, but it
links to search engine positioning pages. Don't give the search
engines any reason to doubt your page.
When talking about links, we are not talking about banner ads.
We are also not talking about your affiliate programs. A page can
contain hundreds or thousands of links on it. There are those to
your internal files on your web server. There are those to external
sites that you provide for informational purposes. Then there are
those you use with banners and text that link to advertisements
and affiliate programs. Although these links may be considered by
the search engines, you can avoid these links interfering with your
relevance by providing more links to relevant information than you
provide to adds and affiliate programs. You can also choose ads
and affiliate programs relevant to your page, but that is another
matter, and is addressed in other areas of our site.
Back
to Table of Contents
Summing It All Up (Article Continues)
Other Search Engine Positioning Articles:
Related E-Book Downloads
By James R. Sanders
December 29, 2003
If you have any suggestions to add to this article,
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About the Author
James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders
Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and website designer since
1997. He has also been involved in self employment ventures since 1992. He is
presently a contributing author of NewbieHangout,
and has been published through WebProNews
and 4Rankings.com.
His writing is targeted to webmasters, would be webmasters, website designers,
would be website designers, self employed, or those researching information
looking for solutions to questions associated with design, business operations,
and promotion today. His goal is to provide practical information based upon
his years of experience to help webmasters, website designers, and self employed
people achieve their goals in today's competitive global market. You can subscribe
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