Search Engine Optimisation and design.

| August 4, 2004, 12:40 pm

It's more work at the outset, but designing in Search Engine Optimisation has considerable long term benefits, so here's an outline for how it can be done...

For long-term search engine visibility, there are 3 components that must be optimised:

  • Text Component
  • Link Component
  • Popularity Component

Text Component.

The text component refers to the visible text within the page and the relationship between search terms and actual site text.

Link Component.

The site text may be keyword rich, but if the search engines cannot find the pages they are of little use. It is usually the construction of the page itself that stops pages being indexed.

Bad Javascript / HTML, Database driven sites (although this is changing) and Flash are the main culprits.

Popularity Component.

The popularity component is a combination of the link popularity and the click-through popularity of a site. That is the quality and the quantity of links to a site, combined with how often they are used.

Optimising text and link components as part of the design process.

1. Keyword definition.

Creating a list of keywords and phrases that customers will use to search for pages. These keywords will relate to individual products and services being offered.

These keywords will be used to write targeted page titles, body copy and Meta tags.

Related search terms will also be identified, these offer an insight into associated areas of customer interest, and are useful in ensuring the development of popular site content.

2. Theme identification, site structure and page list.

Natural themes within the keywords are identified and used to aggregate areas of content into an overall site structure.

The site structure will identify individual pages of content that are required and their title text.

3. Page text development

For each site page a process of text development ensures the optimisation of all text attributes.

Each page should carry between 250 and 800 words (excluding Meta tags) to ensure that there is a good level of information that does not require excessive scrolling.

Client supplied page text will be reviewed and optimised with agreed keywords.

Link text will be written to both encourage action and increase ranking.

Meta tags will be written for each page to provide a keyword rich and clear description of content. Identifying to spiders which pages should not be indexed.

Alternative text will be written to give descriptions of visual elements.

4. Navigation scheme development.

The navigational scheme development should balance branding requirements and efficient indexing by search engine spiders.

5. Address bar (URI) formatting

The directory structure of the site and format of page addresses are considered so as to minimise search engine ‘stop’ characters and provide legibility for users.

6. Robots exclusion protocol

The creation of a Robots Exclusion Protocol file will guide spider indexing and deter indexing of unwanted files.

Developing the popularity component.

The above process will provide strong text and link components, opening up a site the search engines and ensuring they can index the information thoroughly, but what of the popularity component?

The popularity component by its very nature is an external variable and can only be measured and managed over time.

For example; it may be worth investing in a paid placement scheme to drive visitors to a newly launched site (It can take 4-6 weeks for search engines to index a site).

However, once indexed the time and money might well be better spent developing reciprocal links and promotions with popular related sites.

Registrations within directories such as Dmoz.org (Used by Google) and Yahoo will provide a strong general platform. It is important to search out and register in more specialist directories that are relevant for your site.