Optimizing Your Website



Website Optimization begins during and in fact prior to the design of your Website. It is a critical step that should be addressed during the preliminary stages.

 

Every possible angle of web optimization needs to be addressed, evaluated and implemented on our site. Some of these points have already been covered in Planning Your Website. Since Website designing or creating and SEO are so interrelated that you will find me repeating many of the techniques from previous sections such as; navigational techniques, simplicity of website layout, minimizing the use of flash etc.

 


Think of your web pages as a series of mini websites and treat them as such. Plan and design each web page as one website and give it the utmost attention and importance, then move to the next web page and so on, put them all together to make your website. Every time you add a web page; build it with care and consideration.

 

All of us as users, business owners, web designers, hobbyists etc must learn to maximize and optimize each and every one of these elements on our website;

 

  • Title Tag
  • Meta Description
  • Meta Keywords
  • H1, H2 ....Heading Tags
  • Strong, Bold Tags
  • Relevant Page Content
  • Build Site Map - HTML (For Site Users) 
  • Build Site Map - XML  (For Search Engines)
  • Use the ALT Attributes on Images and Photos
  • Use descriptive URL
  • Generate A Robot Text file
  • File and Image Names on Host site should be descriptive
  • Build Internal Links
  • Build External Links
  • Ensure Keyword Selection Matches Content on Page
  • Quality Content
  • Unique Content
  • Fresh Content
  • Follow your Website Theme
  • Page content should match Keywords, Title, Description
  • Google Analytics
  • Website Submission To The Main Search Engines
  • Have A Contact Page
  • Give Your Site A Trust Worthy Feel and Look
  • Avoid Flash
  • Minimize Images on Site
  • Use Web Safe Colours
  • Keep Site Simple
  • Do Not Use Frames
  • Speed Up Website Loading Time
  • Use Web Safe Fonts
  • Avoid Too Many Contrasting Colours
  • Spell Check Site Content
  • Avoid Grammatical Errors

 

I will touch on all these elements and more. Each one of the item listed above enables to make your website SEO friendly and fully optimized.

 

The whole idea is to build a site for the long term. In other words by tweaking and fine tuning every segment of your website (which also means file names, image names etc) right at the design and building stage, you give it the chance of ranking high on SERP. Better to do it early, rather then try to do patch work later.

 

If you are already in the midst of creating your website, then stop and check to ensure that you have addressed all these elements. Even if you have no idea on how to tackle all these tasks and hire an SEO specialist to do the job, at least you will be aware of what areas are to be addressed and how web optimization is an important factor in building your web presence.