Building a Better Website
Here is the third and final part of the Back to the Basics of SEO (search engine optimization). This is one of the most important parts of search engine optimization. A properly designed website can be a great asset to any online marketing strategy and can lay the proper foundation for search engine marketing, search engine optimization, internet marketing and social network marketing campaigns. When I say foundation, I want you to think of a multi-story building. If you had a building who’s foundation was not level, or was built with inferior concrete and was weak, how do you think the rest of the building would stand up? It wouldn’t! The same goes for website design and search engine optimization. You must have a strong foundation to lay the ground work for the rest of your SEO strategy.
How your site is organized, designed, and built will affect its search engine ranking on the search engine results page (SERP). Organize content into themed categories allows you to line up your content by the way people search, you let the search engine know what you are all about. For example, when designing your navigational menu, put your strong points, or most search terms on the top of the menu. If your specialty is “Antique Toys” but you also sell “New Toys” you might want to list “Antique Toys” first on your menu. Remember, that search engines like Google, website crawlers will crawl your website and web design in order from top to bottom. So listing important services or products at the top will help with your search engine optimization results, ranking you higher on the SERP.
You can group similar pages together into separate directories of folders and sub-folders, or you can create what is called a “virtual silo” by using links that guide a user from one page to the next. WordPress provides a great Plug-In called WP-PAGE-NAVI, as used on XTELWEB’s blog. This plug-in is an advanced navigational modification that basically lists pages by number, and provides the link on each page. Google and other search engines love when you have lists of your pages, on each page, that provide numbers, and the infamous “Next Page” and “Previous Page” links.
Other strategies are more technical, so relying on a web developer, like XTELWEB, for assistance might be the best route for your company, or eCommerce website. The site must also be hosted on a fast server. The page code should be free of bugs and fully comply with the standards for website structure set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3.org). Include in the site’s code a special protocol known as a Sitemap, which makes it easier for search engines to scan the site. A sitemap is basically an Index of all the pages listed in your website. You will also want to make sure that you frequently submit your sitemap to Google and other search engines. Google provides an easy to use tool, called Google Webmaster Tools that you can use to easily submit sitemaps. Sitemaps can be submitted to search engines as often as they are updated, there is no need to submit a sitemap that is not updated.
