Designing for Search Engines

Search engines and directories are the White and Yellow Pages of the Internet. A website that isn't listed is like an unpublished telephone number. Nobody can find it. Here are some design guidelines to help you get listed and properly ranked.

Domain Name.
Free domains (like geocities.com/greatwidgets) and secondary domains, (like earthlink.net/greatwidgets) suffer from Rodney Dangerfield syndrome. They don't get any respect. Register your own domain name, i.e. greatwidgets.com. Make it simple to type, easy to remember, and descriptive of your business.

Tags and Titles.
The HTML code for every page, starting with your homepage, should include a brief title describing the content, e.g. Great Widgets: Widgets for All Occasions. Most engines use only the first 60-70 characters. Longer titles may be ignored. Also include META description (125-150 characters) and content (1000 characters maximum) tags on each page. They help engines index your site. For more on META tags, see How to Use HTML Meta Tags on Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch site.

Flash and Frames.
Search engines just don't "see" frames and Macromedia Flash, two techniques used to enhance appearance and navigation. If you must use them, you should also build alternative pages which don't.

Text and Images.
Search engines give more weight to larger type sizes (but not to bold-face, italics, or capitals), so design with descriptive headlines and captions. Since engines can't "see" graphics, make sure your text tells your story. And use the alt (alternative) image attribute to describe graphics; some engines index alt copy.

Content is King.
Sorry Marshall, the media is not the message. It's all about information. Search engines give more weight to terms at the top of a page and to those repeated several times (three or four, not more). And they love fresh content, so update your site on a regular basis.

Skip the Dirty Tricks.
Search engines aren't smart, but they've been around the web a few times. Multiple submissions will get you blackballed or relegated to result page 33,442. Ditto for redirection and gateway pages (two tricks used to list one page and take visitors to another). If your site uses ASP (active server pages) or other dynamic content for legitimate purposes, make sure you also provide static pages that search engines can read and index.

In short, getting listed and properly ranked in search engines results from good website design. Keep it clean, simple and informative, and play it straight.

Thanks to the American Society of Appraisers for permission to reprint this article written by Lou Bruno for their Newsline newsletter.