Web Presence Help
the blog

If you want people to be able to find your site, you want to stay on Google’s good side. That means keeping the GoogleBot happy. Happy, in this case, means that their ’bots can crawl your site (in English: their computers can read it).

But that does’t mean you should write for the bot. As I said in the last post, Google is very motivated to read sites the way the user reads them. The bot gets better and better at thinking like a web site visitor. If you write for the visitor instead of trying to game the system, you’ll find Google’s algorithms (or search programs) will improve, in your favor, over time.

Search Engine Friendly Design is Well-Organized

Search engines like what people like. Clean, well-organized content that is relevant to the topic they’re searching for.

While some browsers will display content in an attractive format even if it’s not well organized, the best way for visitors and bots to discover your content is to serve it up according to web standards, and organized in a way that doesn’t require browsers to guess what you mean.

Here are some specific ways to make your structure search engine and visitor friendly.

Use html tags that clearly identify the content.

Use header tags for headers, instead of just making the words bigger. This lets browsers, and people, understand the document structure.

Use alt text in your image tags, to help users who can’t see the images know what’s going on, and coincidentally to help search engines understand what your page is about.

Keep it simple.

Use text links rather than images, whenever possible.

Do you really need javascript?

Use flash sparingly, when it really helps. Not for the whole site, or for navigation.

Make a sitemap?

To be honest, this is the one case where you need to coddle Google. If your navigation systems are clean and well-structured, you don’t usually need a site map for visitors. You shouldn’t need one for Google, either, but they encourage you to submit one anyway. Why? Because it lets them know how you intend for your site to work. They can compare that map with how the site actually works, and help you discover errors to fix.

Check out how your web site appears with javascript, java, and flash turned off. View it without images—ideally, in a bare-bones browser like Lynx. Your site should work just fine with none of the bells and whistles. That way you know that both people and bots can access your content easily.

Be Precise, and Clean Up Mistakes

Who likes trying to use a web site and finding it broken? Take time to look for mistakes, and fix them. Use web tools like those provided by Google to find the sneaky ones.

Fix broken links.

They drive visitors crazy, and they drive bots crazy too.

Be very transparent.

If your site is about selling motorcycles in Vermont, you don’t want to attract a visitor who is planning a Hawaiian vacation. You want to attract visitors who are actually looking for content like yours. (As it happens, Google wants this too. Otherwise they look stupid.) Make sure you have meta tags for page description and keywords, and make sure they are accurate and clear.

Have a Site Worth Visiting

Hands down, the most important thing you can do to get a high ranking on search engines is to provide value to visitors. I can’t stress this enough. It’s really all about content.

Content that users can find and access is what your web site is all about.

To learn more about writing web content, come back next week, or choose one of these options.

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