Writing Search Engine Friendly Webpages
by: Michael Lawrence
In order to tap the huge stream of targeted traffic an internet search engine can provide a website you need to master a few common sense principles when crafting your webpages.
You can rest assured no sites receive top search engine rankings by chance in competitive keyword markets. They spend time and money to acquire and maintain their search engine positioning. Targeting your keyword market precisely and applying the principles in this article will help you compete in any keyword marketplace.
When crafting your web pages for the search engines remember that a search engine spider is not human. They only read the html code for your website, they do not actually "see" what your site looks like.
1. Use static html pages not dynamically generated web pages wherever you can. Some dynamically created WebPages are not indexable by the search engines. If they can’t index your pages you might as well not exist no matter how useful your website might be.
2. Use your main keywords in meta “title” tag, meta “description” tag, and meta “keywords” tags,
3. Use your keywords in the first line of your web page “body” and within “header” tags throughout your html document. Use “bolding” of keywords where appropriate. Using your keywords within bold and header tags makes them stand out as important. Also having them near the beginning of your web page is also an indicator of importance in the search engine’s eyes.
4. Use your keywords in img "alt" and link "title" tags. These tags don’t show up as visible text but they can help give a search engine a better idea of what your link is about. Resist the urge to stuff a lot of keywords into these tags but definitely use them to your advantage and place a select few of your most important keywords in there.
5. Don't use a lot of tables in your html. Use css style sheets to store webpage “style” definitions if you can. Storing style information in Css reduces the overall size of your WebPages considerably allowing them to load much faster.
6. Don't use a lot of outbound or affiliate links within your webpage. Keep your web pages focused on providing content first, not making money. . Search Engine’s don’t like WebPages that are just filled with affiliate links and banners. These pages have little or no content and do not score well because of this.
7. Maintain a high "visible text: graphics" ratio on your webpage. This is a similar idea to 6 plus your pages will load faster with less graphics on them.
8. Repeat your major keyword phrases near the end of your webpage in a sentence with the keywords bolded. Optionally place a short sentence in a header tag.
After you have created your webpage and applied these principles upload the page to your web host and visit the following URL to analyze your work:
http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/web-page-analyser.shtmlI have chosen this tool because it is very easy to understand and it is free. Use the suggestions this site provides and re-edit your webpage. When you have the page optimized to your satisfaction visit:
http://www.submitexpress.comand submit your webpage URL to the major search engines for Free.
Congratulations, you're first "optimized" web page is on the internet and submitted to the major search engines. Get some rest, this is only the beginning of your adventure
Copyright 2005 Cobrasurf.com
About The Author
Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for
http://www.cobrasurf.com a free autosurf traffic exchange. He also publishes a web promotion related blog at
http://cobrasurf.blogspot.com.
