2. Hot n Heavy Web Site Consummation

Building your new web site is an exiting adventure. The act of creation is a rush whether you are using silk sheets or style sheets. Before you start with your new web site, however, you must make sure that youve laid the proper foundation for future success. Search engine optimization should be on your mind even at the formative stage of your web site to insure your success and to prevent you from having to rearrange the site structure for SEO.

Customer-Centered Development
You can consider your target audience and market niche when guiding the development of your web site. Is your audience Internet savvy, or are they newbies? Will they read complex instructions and navigate to find information, or do you need to sell a simple and direct message quickly? Let your site user profile influence the structure and complexity of your web site.

The ABCs of HTML
It almost goes without saying that it is important the website developer to have good knowledge on HTML and the basic rules of website development. Beyond the basics, however, keep in mind that many design decisions will have a direct effect on search engines will analyze your web site. Eye candy like Flash-based navigation can be fun to develop, but search engines wont be able read information contained in images, Flash inserts, and other kinds of web site window dressings. Try to stay away from using too many effects since this can harm your search engine readability.

Clear Paths for Crawling Spiders
Search engines are continually scouring the Internet and processing web pages to provide their users with the best information possible. This process involves the use of automated programs, commonly called spiders, which continually crawl the web. It is important that your web site is built in a way that is easy for the spiders to find information. Clean, well-defined and simple code structure is a must for SEO-friendly HTML. Obsessing over tidy code may seem a bit anal-retentive, but it is important to have HTML that can be easily processed by web browsers and search engines alike. Be sure the HTML is implemented with all key structure tags placed in the right order. It is especially important to understand the right placement of the Meta Tags, tables and heading structure.

Google Commandments
SEO techniques specific to the Google search engine will be discussed in detail in the second installment of this tutorial, but keep this immensely popular service in your thoughts even during the creation of your web site. Google gives an advantage to sites which are well organized and easily classified. Cleanliness may be its own reward, but improved placement within the Internets leading search engine should motivate even the most sloppy web master to scrub HTML clean.

The other vital tenet from the Book of Google is the Internet is built upon the free transition of information. Google rewards web sites that give the users the opportunity to move easily from page to page, site to site. After all, Google wants to be sure that Google users can easily come back to Google. This means that the back button in the browser must work on all pages of your web site. The God of Search Engines will punish you if you stop their users from going back to search results.

Blinded by Flash
Macromedia describes its powerful Flash application as a powerful tool that

...allows designers and developers to integrate video, text, audio, and graphics into immersive, rich experiences that deliver superior results for interactive marketing and presentations, e-learning, and application user interfaces.

Flash can be a great tool for creating innovative, dynamic web sites, but it is a double-edged sword. Many experts agree that improper use of Flash will cause significant trouble with the search engine optimization. If a spider cant crawl your web site because key navigation is hidden in a Flash insert, your placement on that search engine will suffer tremendously. Use the effects moderately to avoid harming your site. A flash introduction may seem like an attractive design decision, but it can create a significant barrier to your site content.

The focus of your web site must lead you in every stage of the development. Starting with a good development and promotion will deliver results in the future and will pay back your efforts.


3. Wonderful Web Design and Sensational SEO

The graphical design of your web site will be a key building block of your business image. Design is one of the most core decisions in creating of your corporate image because it creates an instant, visual representation of your companys presence. Design decisions must carefully balance aesthetics and usability, but mind though that it is equally important to consider search engine optimization in the design phase. Certain design decisions can have a disastrous impact on your placement in search engines. We will therefore merge the two in a discussion of design-specific SEO requirements in the remainder of this section.

Surveying the Landscape
Do you want to know what design conventions may work well in your industry? Look first to your competition. Look closely and critically at your competitors to evaluate what design elements have been successful in the past. You can use search results to gauge which sites have better optimization. Keep in mind, however, that the most successful competitors will likely be better positioned in search engines because of the factors that made them successful, not necessarily only SEO-specific activity.

The graphical design of your web site will be a key building block of your business image. Design is one of the most core decisions in creating of your corporate image because it creates an instant, visual representation of your companys presence. Design decisions must carefully balance aesthetics and usability, but mind though that it is equally important to consider search engine optimization in the design phase. Certain design decisions can have a disastrous impact on your placement in search engines. We will therefore merge the two in a discussion of design-specific SEO requirements in the remainder of this section.

Surveying the Landscape
Do you want to know what design conventions may work well in your industry? Look first to your competition. Look closely and critically at your competitors to evaluate what design elements have been successful in the past. You can use search results to gauge which sites have better optimization. Keep in mind, however, that the most successful competitors will likely be better positioned in search engines because of the factors that made them successful, not necessarily only SEO-specific activity.