Everyone can use some advice now and then, from the neophyte to seasoned web veteran. If you’re new to web design, then tips are crucial to your understanding of how things work, how they should be crafted, and how to do things the right way. If you’re already an expert, then tips and advice can at least reinforce that you’re doing things right. Besides, who doesn’t like a little positive reinforcement now and then?

These six (6) tips aren’t “Web 101″ advice, but they’re not Graduate level either. They’re just good, solid advice for crafting your website to elicit positive results, both from your visitors as well as from search engines.

1. Content means content

If you create content, make sure it’s useable and searchable content. To put this another way: text means TEXT! Catch phrases, company slogans, site/personal/business messages, even addresses – if it’s meant to be displayed as text, then display it as text. Do NOT embed text in images. Sure, it may look cool when you create it in Photoshop, but search engines can’t read text embedded in images (at least not yet). Take some time and learn how to use style sheets if you want to stylize your text. That way you can not only make text look pretty, you also leave it visible to search engines.

2. Act as a Visitor

If you’re building a website chances are you’ve used the web to look for something. You’ve visited a site to buy something, research something, or look at something. You’ve experienced the hassles of searching and you’ve either easily found what you want or you’ve spent more time than necessary finding it, so use that knowledge to your advantage. One of the most useful things to remember when building a website is that search engines want what users want: useful, relevant, easily searchable and understandable content, site organization and information. Make it as easy as possible for people to buy, for people to learn, for people to do whatever it is you want them to do on your site.

3. Keywords in Page Titles and Descriptions

Okay, so maybe this IS a little Web 101, but it’s still very relevant, and falls in line with #2. Be sure to use the words people search for in your page titles and page descriptions. Don’t “stuff” keywords in there, but DO use them.  If you sell custom widgets to pipe fitters in the greater Philadelphia area, then the page showcasing those widgets should be called “Custom Widgets for Pipe Fitters in Greater Philadelphia”. Clear, to the point, and a phrase like “custom widgets Philadelphia”, a solid targeted search phrase, is in there. As far as how “much” to say, a good rule of thumb is to keep page titles to 70 characters (including spaces) and page descriptions to 250 characters (with spaces).

4. Link to YOUR Own Stuff

Internal links can be as important as external links. Besides, you don’t want to send visitors somewhere else for information as that means, quite simply, they’re leaving YOUR site. Once they’re gone, they may not come back. If you can at least recreate content found elsewhere versus just linking to it, then do that, but organic content (that is, content YOU create versus content you rip from somewhere else) can make a huge difference and it is always a good way to keep people coming back for more. The web was built for sharing information, but if you DO use someone else’s content ALWAYS give credit where credit is due – it’s not only the right thing to do, but you may make a few friends, and receive reciprocal links, in return.

5. Create a Foundation for your Site

Okay, this is a little high level, but it’s an often-overlooked part of creating your site. We’ve discussed linking, page titles and descriptions, and the importance of site content. This tip relates to site structure and organization. Think of the “Three Click Rule” – that is, it shouldn’t take a visitor more than three (3) clicks to find the content they want. Now, carry that over to how your site is organized from a folder and sub-folder standpoint. The closer your pages are to the root of your site (that is, the main entry point of your site), the easier it is for search engines to find the pages. In addition, from a URL and linking standpoint, this URL [www.YourDomain.com/products/custom-widgets-philadelphia-pipe-fitters.html] is much easier to crawl, not to mention understand, than this one [www.YourDomain.com/products/custom/widgets/pipefitters/philadelphia.html] as the page is sitting closer to the root of the site.

6. Dashes, Not Underscores

One final simple suggestion: use dashes in page names instead of underscores. Not only do people process dashes as clear separations of words, but search engines (particularly Google) see words separated by dashes as completely separate terms. However, words that are separated with underscores are seen as a single term.  Therefore, use custom-widgets-philadelphia.html and NOT custom_widgets_philadelphia.html.

So there you have it. Are there any questions about any of these? What about YOUR suggestions?

Tags: Promotion, Search engine optimization, web design, Web Design and Development, Web search engine, website