Web
design entails two primary guiding principles. The first
principle is based upon the very reason the Internet exists.
A website must offer good information in a timely manner. Internet
surfers are looking for information; it may be entertainment
information or it may be educational in nature.
People
use the Internet to find information because it offers convenience
and speed. Rule # 1 for a marketing website is that it is built
for speed, AND it is customer-friendly.
The
second principle, or Rule # 2, is that search
engines must like your web design. The ONLY way to achieve
good rankings with Internet Search Engines is to design your site
with lots of "spider food."
Search
engines use algorithmic robots called spiders to
crawl the web in search of websites, hence the term spider
food. Spider food is not too unlike what Internet surfers
seek -- good information that is easy to find, a good internal
and external linking strategy and a site that is easily read by
the spiders.
Does
your web page have a unique title? Unique title
simply means that if you site has 211 pages, no two pages have
the same title. Does the title contain the keyword that expresses
the basic purpose of the page? How prominent does the keyword figure
in the title? How many words are used in the title of your page?
What
about link text on your page? Do you have too
few or too many words in the link text? How many times did you
use your keyword in the link texts? What is the prominence of the
keyword within the link texts?
Some
search engines read the ALT tags on your web page the same way
they read the link text area.
Search
engines, like your site visitors, look for valuable content in
the body text area. The Google search
engine spider looks for a word count of between 324 to
525 words. Within those words it looks for the keyword to be used
from one to 16 times, and it looks to see how prominent the keyword
is used within the body text.
Web
design is an art. In 2005, lots of good content and an
above-average linking strategy is essential. A search engine specialist
today must know how to develop strategic linking in addition to
keeping up-to-date with search engine algorithms.
