Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is something many people regard as mysteriously and confusing. There are few resources that clearly define just exactly what SEO is and that’s because the rules and methods seem to change every single day. This makes it very difficult to stay on top of things and keep your sites promoted and up in search engine results. No matter what the rules of the day are there are some things you can do with your web design that will help you in search engines regardless.
The first thing you want to do to ensure at least basic search engine optimization for your web site is to make sure you’re using clean HTML markup. You want to make sure your site is as easy for the search engines to crawl and index and cluttered markup will severely lessen those changes. The best way to get clean markup is to validate your HTML every time you make a change to make sure it is error free and always separate your design styles with Cascading Style Sheets.
One thing many web designers seem to forget is the important of a page’s title. This is set using the
tag at the top of your HTML. The standard method for good search engine optimization is to make sure whatever keywords you wish to rank well for in search engines appears right away in your page’s title. Many web designers unfamiliar with SEO put their site’s name front and center in their <title> and leave it at that. That is a big mistake that is easy to correct.</p>
<p>Finally, using the < meta> tags is another easy way to help with your search engine optimization. The value of these in the eyes of the SEO community seems to rise and fall with the sun but everyone generally agrees they are worth the effort. There are two main types of Meta tags: description and keywords. They are both pretty self-explanatory but an interesting function of the Description tag is that it is what will appear directly under your link in search engines. This is a great way to control what search engine users first see when they are presented with a link to your site.</p>
<p>Writing clean HTML and using the proper tags are easy steps to take to make your site at search engine optimized. There are dozens of other techniques that are more elaborate but this basic set should get you well on your way to ranking well in search engines.</p>
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