Make Your Website a Magnet for Search Engine Spiders

After setting up your website, your next goal is to make it visible in search engines so that more people could visit it. But this cannot happen until you have made some modifications to make your website search engine friendly. If no search engine optimization strategies are applied in your site, you have poor chances of getting found on Google, MSN or Bing.

It is however not advisable to design the website based on search engine friendliness. You want it to be friendly both to users and search engines. Putting too much emphasis on search engine optimization could hurt your page rank later on.

Put it in Text

Websites pages need to be in HTML text format so the search engines can index them. Flash files, images and other non-text contents will not be visible to search engine spiders unless they are indexed within the content. So, when using images, be sure to include a written transcript or description so they can be picked up by search engines easily.

Creating Smart Link Structure

When it comes to website pages, it is important to put links within them so search engines can easily navigate on them. When picking a keyword for your links, be sure to use a user friendly description. Aside from benefits of getting indexed quickly, creating quality links also ensure good experience for users.

The Power of ‘alt’ Tags

An image alt tag is basically a keyword or description attached to an image. It is mainly used to tell users as well as the spiders to identify what the image is. While a complete description is not feasible, it will be best to have something in there. It is not necessary to put alt tags in all images but be sure to put one on your primary image such as your logo.

The Role of Keywords in Page Rank

Appropriate usage and placement of keywords in content is the key to effective search engine optimization. Since search engine spiders index and rank pages through keywords, it is important to use the right keywords in the description, URL and content.

It is best to use keywords at least three times on every page. Underlining or bolding of keywords will give spiders hints on which words to attach more importance to. If possible, include keywords on the title as well. Be careful however, not to overuse keywords as this may also have negative effects on your site. Search engine algorithms might identify your site as a spammer and ban you from search engines for good.

Watch Out for Black Hat Search Engine Optimization

Another practice you might want to avoid in search engine optimization is content duplication. Copying the contents of other sites could get your website penalized. Search engines don’t usually show duplicate content anyway. So, why bother taking risks?

Search engines also warn against doorway pages, shadow domains, scumware and spyware. These are not the way to go if you want to reach page one of Google. They may work for awhile but you will eventually get caught and disappear in the face of Google earth.

Making your site accessible for the major search engines is one of the basics of any search engine optimizaton strategy (interesting to know is that the Danish term is søgemaskineoptimering). You can read more useful SEO tips, from this great article.