Illusion Technologies: PHP Developers

Website Development For Search Engines Part 1
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mark_Andrew_Jones]Mark Andrew Jones

Creating an online presence is big business nowadays and unfortunately the same mistakes are still being made by web developers, or rather overlooked when it comes to getting a website online.

It does not matter if the business is small or large (We have built websites for multinational corporations and smaller mum and dad businesses) some things must be adhered to:

Do not assume that your web developer or web designer will do the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for you.

Search Engine optimization is an integral part of the web development process and should not be overlooked or “tacked on at the end, if we have budget”.

It is imperative that you include the cost of search engine optimization in the budget when costing your website.

Search Engine Optimization is important.

Business owners think that they can get a website built place it online and then sit back and sales and traffic roll in, their only worry will be keeping up wth the orders being placed, right? Wrong.

So what is SEO and why is it important?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the art of developing your website with search engines in mind. If your website is not Search Engine friendly then the chances of your website getting properly indexed by a search are not good.

If a search engine cannot index your website then the chances of your website appearing in the search engines results when someone enters a keyword to do with your website are very slim indeed. No results is equal to no traffic.

So what are some of the good things you and your web developer can do to optimize your website for search engines?

Part 1) Title tags, Meta tags and why should I use the <> tag in the body of my website.

1) HTML title tag
Place a meaningful title inside the title tag, do not stuff it with keywords but by the same token having a phrase which is to do with your website certainly does not hurt.

As an example, we used “Software development and Web Design”, our Gold Coast Web Design company does both of these things so why not put it in the title. Also, “Software development” and “Web Design” are two key phrases which people will certainly search on.

2) HTML Description and Keywords meta tags
These two tags are not as important as they once were but are still not to be overlooked.

Place a description of what your website will be about and what it will do inside the HTML escription meta tag. Again do not overstuff your description with keywords or key phrases s the content in the description should have “some” relevance to the information contained in the body of the page. If it is not relevant, some search engines smell something fishy and may blacklist your website or decide not to index the site. Remember, search engines are doing you a favor by indexing your website and adding it to their catalogue. Do not expect it!

The HTML Keywords meta tag is used to contain keywords or key phrases which are relevant to your website.

For example, if you have an Australian, Gold Coast Software and web design business, use keywords like “Web design, Gold Coast, Australia, web application development”. Again, obey the same rules for the Keywords meta tag as you would for the Description meta tag; Do not overstuff keywords but by the same token do use it.

3) We all know that “Content is king” but what about optimization?

Search engines place more emphasis on keywords surrounded by the <> tag.

For those people who are not familiar with the <> tag, it is a standard way of emphasizing text on a webpage (Heading 1). Up until the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) displaying a word surrounded by the <> tag meant it would appear huge on the page. As such it was reserved for headings, headings are important (Search engines recognize this) and use the <> tag as well as the other heading tags (<><> etc) to rate keywords in a page.

So, in a nutshell, place important keywords inside the <> tag; e.g. <>Gold Coast, Software Development. If your keywords and heading are appearing too large, don’t worry, a little bit of CSS can reduce that size but still give emphasis to your keywords.

Coming up in part 2) More information about how you can optimize the body of your website for SEO. The dangers of using PHP session IDs in the querystring and are database driven websites a good thing when it comes to SEO.

Mark Jones is a Senior Analyst Programmer for Gold Coast Web Design Company http://e-evolution.net and http://www.customfranchisesoftware.com

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