When Search Engine Optimization and Web Site Design Conflict
Lets say you built a beautiful graphically rich web site with many photos and
text rendered as images. You place meta-tag keywords in the head section as well
as a good title and description. You submit your site to all of the major search
engines and you find many weeks later that your search engine rankings are either
very low or non-existent. If you followed this article so far, you can probably
guess what happened. The page had very little text for the search engines to index.
The meta-tags were ignored because they did not match any of the text in the page.
So how can we accomplish search engine optimization and still keep the web
sites beautiful appearance? You need to balance content vs. appearance. With some
thought, you will be able to get the graphical appearance you are looking for
while at the same time, provide meaningful content for the visitors to your site.
Chances are, finding a better balance between graphical appearance and meaningful
text content will also make your site more meaningful to your viewers. Remember
the example of the on-line art gallery at the beginning of this article? Adding
quality content about the artist, the paintings, care of paintings, etc. only
adds to the value of your web site.
There are a few other things you can do that can help. Make sure that every
image has an HTML <alt> tag. An alt tag is text that appears when the image
is loading or in place of the image if the image is not displayed. Most search
engines will index alt tags. Alt tags will also help make your site friendlier
to the handicap. Use relevant text to describe your images.
How Links Can Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
Some search engines, such as Google, will give higher ranking to web sites
that have many other sites linking to them. According to Google, the quality and
relevancy of the link counts. A popular site with a relevant link to your web
site will boost your ratings. Google actually has an advanced search feature that
allows you to find out who in their index is linked to your web site. In Google’s
search box type link: and the URL of the web site. For example, link:www.yourwebsite.com.
There are also some tools that will help you determine your link popularity. These
include:
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