How to Optimize Your Website

Creating a website that appeals to search engines can be challenging, but it's critical if you want your Website to generate a steady stream of traffic. That's where effective Website optimization tricks come in. So how do you develop Web content that caters to both search engine spiders and Website visitors? There's no single set of tricks and strategies to observe, but here are some basic website optimization tricks you can use to make your site more appealing to search engines.

• Include Meta and title tags: Some search engines still use Meta Keyword, Meta Description and Title tags to catalog and rank Web pages. Be sure to place a title tag at the top of each page to identify the document's overall content. You should also write an accurate Meta description tag because it's often used by search engines to describe a site in search results. And don't neglect to include a Meta keyword tag to reveal the most important keywords for each page to search engine spiders. This is one Website optimization trick you do not want to overlook because Meta tags can be the key to getting "found" by search engines.

• Place keywords strategically throughout your content: Having keyword-rich content is the key (pardon the pun) to performing well with search engines. Load your Home and other critical pages with important keywords, since it may be the only page indexed by some engines. If you're not sure which keywords to weave throughout your Website, try using software like WordTracker. It's one of the leading tools you can use for website optimization, and it's available through a free trial.

• Use your primary keywords in an H1 header tag near the top of your page: Google gives extra weight to text located within header tags when computing PR. Also use a couple of H2 tags on your page because they count as well (although not as much as the H1).

• It's always good to inspect your website after any updates, especially changing tags: It is very easy to create broken links and design flaws which may affect your search engine optimization, not to mention your traffic and revenues. You will also need to create a sitemap.xml file (generally provided for free) to submit to search engines to optimize your website.

• Keep your content updated and provide enough content: Good Web content is a critical factor in keeping site visitors interested and coming back for more. It's also the key to higher search engine rankings. Major search engines typically require you to have at least 200 to 250 words on each Web page. So it's important to include plenty of valuable content to appeal to search engines-and visitors.

• Avoid using frames if possible: Frames, which are being used less and less, enable you to split a page into pieces and section off static content to decrease download times. However, today's Websites are larger and require more dynamic elements than are feasible with frames. Having a complex frame set up, can keep you from creating a search- engine friendly Website that draws a high ranking.

• Build incoming or back links: Building good incoming or back links can also increase your search engine ranking and Website traffic. Here's why this Website optimization trick is so crucial: Most major search engines rank Web pages based on the number and the quality of links that point to the Website (link popularity). They do so because it's very difficult for Web masters to "fake" good links. As a result, link analysis gives search engines a useful means of determining which pages are good for particular topics.

• Create a Site Map page and link to it directly from your home page: On your Site Map page place links to every other page in your website. This guarantees that every page on your website can be reached with a maximum of two mouse clicks or "link follows" by the spiders.

• Use alt tags to describe your photos: If you can use a keyword or two in your alt tag that is even better, but be careful here that your alt tag accurately describes the photo or Google may consider it to be spam.

• Validate Your HTML Code: While search engines don't care whether your HTML code is error-free, they rely on the basic correctness of the code to find out which portions of your web page to index. If your HTML code contains errors, it is possible that only portions of your web page are included in the search engine's database. The errors, while undetectable in a web browser, may lead the search engine software to think that some of the text on your page is part of the HTML formatting information rather than your site's content. As a result, the search engine may ignore that text, and your web page will not be shown in its results page.