Creating a great website isn't the chore it used to be. There are a number of fine wysiwyg web design programs available today that can produce quality web pages for very little cost. Of course, for those pages to have any chance of ranking well in the search engines, they will need to be optimized properly.



Any worthwhile website builder software will allow you to enter information for the section of the site code, including a meta title, description and keywords. Obviously, each program will have its own specific approach for the input of this essential info; don't overlook it. Once the pages are published, (converted from the software's native format to html) this information will be placed in its proper position in the finished code. This step is extremely important, so you'll need to get it right.

Here's a short look at the various means of on-page optimization:

1. Head

a. Meta Title
The title is not the domain name, or www name of your website. It is actually a descriptive title; a short keyword rich name for your site. For example, if your site sells pencils, "Number 2 Lead Pencils"
might be a suitable title. I like to keep the title length to no more than fifty characters.

b. Meta Description
A short (fewer than 200 characters) description of what the webpage is about, such as "We sell wooden pencils in all standard hardness grades, specializing in number 2 lead pencils.

c. Meta Keywords
Stick to keywords that people will actually use to search for the content on the webpage, and make sure that those words are in your body content. Having a hundred keywords won't help if they don't target what your page is about. Some keywords for our example could be: pencils, lead pencils, wooden pencils, number 2 lead, wooden, wood, lead, hardness. All these words or phrases should be used somewhere in the text on the webpage they are associated with.

2. Body

a. Title
The title of your website can be incorporated into the visible text on the web page. Don't create an image for the title, use text instead. Search engines can't read the text embedded in an image.

b. Content
The actual body text should contain the keywords/key phrases as often as possible without making the text sound contrived. Keep it as natural as possible, and be sure the your key phrase starts early in the text. Use bold letters once and italic letters once to emphasize the key phrases or a repeat of the title in the text. Make sure words are spelled correctly and attempt to use good grammar and punctuation.

c. Alt-image tags
Ever notice the little description that pops up when you hold your mouse cursor over a webpage image? This information can be read by search engines, so any images you use that can contain some of your keywords should have alt-image tags assigned to them. Again, your wysiwyg website software should have this feature.

3. Links

a. Site navigation links and external links should use short, to-the-point, descriptive text containing keywords, whenever possible.

4. Header tags

These tags point to and set apart specific text headings in order of importance. Some of the more expensive website builder programs may allow you to set up sections of text this way, but most wysiwyg software does not. It seems the major search engines no longer apply any extra significance to text contained within these tags, so don't be concerned if your software doesn't have this feature.

Don't just copy and paste the same meta tag info onto every page of the website. Each page should target different keywords, and have a different title and description. This will give your site more opportunities to be found for different search terms.

One thing that most wysiwyg web design programs do is create code that follows the same order in which the site was constructed. Although meta information will be correctly placed at the top of the code, the body code may be somewhat haphazard. Some web design programs allow for moving the various sections of code up or down, so the finished code has a more orderly structure.

Well, that pretty well covers the most important aspects of on-page search engine optimization. Even though these techniques are extremely important, they will only get you so far. Off-page optimization, consisting of link building, article submissions, etc. is necessary as well. And don't forget, a great way to gain site popularity is to have great content. No wysiwyg website software can give you that.

About The Author:
Steve Leedy is a local government computer IT and webmaster whose own website, http://www.websitedoit.com, contains articles, information and software to help anyone interested in building and promoting a website.