Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 1 on 1
Monday, May 26th, 2008What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the method or process of enhancing the volume and quality of human traffic to a website from the various search engines via “natural” or “organic” search results for targeted keywords and phrases.
A site that has been optimized becomes search engine friendly and, thus, indexed by the various search engines. Multiple factors must come into play for a website to be made search engine friendly. Below is a list of these factors with the role each plays in the optimization process:
There are two major aspects of SEO: “Internal or On-page Optimization” and “External or Off-page Optimization”.
On-page Optimization refers to techniques that can be used within the pages of a website to maximize its performance in search engines for targeted keywords and phrases. Off-page Optimization refers to techniques that can be employed outside your website to achieve the same result.
Internal or On-page Optimization
- Coding Standards & Architectural Integrity
- Meta Data
- Title Tag Elements
- Structural Elements
- Navigation
- Page Copyright
- Keywords & Phrases
- Internal Linking
- Blogging
External or Off-page Optimization
- External Linking
- Directory Submissions
- Social Bookmarking
- Press Releases
- Article Submission
- Blog Reviews and Promotions
- RSS Feeds and Backlink
- Forum and Blog Signatures
- Public Relationship
On-Page Optimization
Coding Standards & Architectural integrity
Adhering to best practice standards when coding for the web is of great relevance because a well coded site with carefully planned architectural and hierarchical layout will produce a solid foundation upon which to build semantic web structures with high integrity.
DOCTYPE Declaration
Remember to declare the Document Type (DOCTYPE) at the header or beginning of each page. According to W3C standards, each HTML document requires a document type declaration. The “DOCTYPE” begins the HTML document and informs the validator, the user agent and the search engine bots (also known as “spiders”) which version of HTML to use in checking the document’s syntax. This also informs the browsers how to display the webpage.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- ... body of document ... -->
</body>
</html>
Now, let’s move on to the next must do, which is the hierarchical placement of the various elements and attributes as you code. Make sure to apply Semantic Markup throughout the coding process since it helps define the information hierarchy of your content so that search engines can more accurately understand your message and direct users to your site. To attain this, begin by separating structure from presentation.
