When you instruct a web designer it is important that they know all the elements to make your website search engine friendly. Below are some things you should be looking for:
1. Descriptive URLs
When you see websites you will see that the URLs either include descriptive words or they are a combination of numbers and symbols. It is vital that you ensure your URLs are descriptive. This is one of the things that the search engines use to determine what your web page is about. If they are not descriptive then the search engines will have no clue at all.
2. Text Links
When you create a menu on your website it is really tempting to use Flash effects and fancy fonts. The only problem with this is that search engines cannot read Flash. A search engine can only read text and follow text links. For that reason it is important that you can get to any page on your website using text links otherwise the search engines will not be able to find all the pages on your site. If you do want to have a really impressive menu then you should consider adding text links at the bottom of your page so that the search engines can navigate your website.
3. Descriptive Title tags
You need to make sure that the title of each web page is descriptive and accurately describes the content. We would always recommend setting your website up with a content management system that gives you the ability to edit the title tag. This way you can have control over it and if things change so will your titles.
4. Useful Image Tags
If you have images on your site it is important you describe them properly. Remember as discussed before the search engines can only read text. This means they are not able to view an image and determine what it is. The only way they can tell is by the text you use in the tag for an image. For that reason you should make sure that you use good quality descriptive tags for your images.
5. Include a Sitemap
If you have a lot of deep content then it is really important that you have a sitemap. This is really useful because your sitemap is normally only one link away from the home page. This means that the search engines will be able to find your sitemap very easily. The sitemap is then normally a series of text links to each of your pages which the search engines can then follow and be able to index all the pages within your website.
The above points are not the only things you will need to do to get top search engine rankings but what they will give you is and initial base to start from. The better your website is created the easier it will be to carry out search engine optimisation and it could help with getting their quicker.
