Search Engine Optimization Basics

I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, but I find search engine optimization fascinating (yes, I'm a geek). It surprises me how often I find a website that looks beautiful, but hasn't done even the most basic things to ensure that the site is listed correctly in search engines. Most of what I know about search engine optimization, I have learned from my Dad, who, with my Mom, sells beautiful Amish quilts online. Here is the information I think everyone who designs websites should know.

Search engines (google, yahoo, msn, etc…) use “web-crawling” programs to find and categorize websites. To make your website easy to find with search engines, you need to have links to your website from reputable websites, and your website needs to use the right words (keywords) in the right places so the programs categorize your site correctly. The best way I know to get links from reputable websites is to have valuable, original content; you can also trade links with other websites, and buy ads. The text of the link (the blue text people click on) matters-- if the link is just your web address (eg http://novatowi.blogspot.com/ ) it won’t do you as much good as if it is your keywords.

Making sure your keywords are in the right places in your site’s HTML is an easy thing to do. Your keywords are the words people might use to search the web when they’re looking for sites like yours. Essentially, the web-crawling programs read your source code and assume that the topics that come first in the source are the main topics of your site. To look at your source code, open your site in IE or Firefox, click on the “view” menu, and then “source”; the source code will open in a new window. Your keywords should be in your website’s title, meta-description, meta-keywords, and in large type at the top of your website’s text (as seen in the source code— if the site has columns of text, make sure that the column listed first contains your keywords). It is also good to have keywords in your website address. The “meta-description” is the blurb you see under the title when a site is listed in a search engine. It should be a couple sentences, and should both include keywords, and be something that would encourage a person to look at your site.

Each page in a site should have a different title and description.