Here are 3 simple things you can ask when you are having your site built:

1. Is Structural HyperText Markup Language (HTML) being used correctly?

It is really that simple – using html as it was intended, as structural
markup, keeping the presentation separate from the content. The HTML code
should be structured according to web standards, using the proper <h1>,
<h2> tags and wrapping paragraph structures in <p> tags. With
proper semantic use of HTML the search engines can derive intended meaning from
the content and correctly index your page.

Even if your site looks good in the browser it does not mean your site is using
valid HTML code. While the browsers can still read non-compliant code, the
search engine spiders have trouble with it. It all sounds so simple, but the sad
reality is that as long as web browsers continue to accept invalid code it will
always be a problem. That leaves it up to you to make sure that your site is as
close to standards as possible.

2. Does your site use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

I know this was said before, but it is so important, keep the
presentation separate from the structure, design separate from the data, the
layout separate from the content. CSS controls the way your site looks and it
is in a separate file so when the search engine spiders come to your site they
get the meat not all the stuff that decorates the plate.

3. Check your site in a validating tool

Whether your website code is currently 100% compliant, or a few rules were
broken in order to accommodate old browsers, it’s always good to know if your
site is compliant. There is a great and free validation tool at the World Wide Web Consortium site that can validate your html code as well as your
CSS.

There are also many other benefits besides SEO to using web standards:

Easier to read the code – Since the design is separated from the
structure it is much easier to hand the code off to other designers or
developers for site maintenance.

Valid code saves time finding
bugs – A validation tool
takes a web page and validates the code against the web standards recommended
by the W3C. So instead of spending many frustrating hours trying to fix a
problem in one browser a validation tool will quite often find the problem for
you.

Content is separate from the
style - This makes it
easier to create different style sheets for alternative browsers and devices,
broadening your audience.

Web standards are forward compatible – When sites are designed using web
standards it is more likely your site will continue to look as good as it
should as newer browsers are released.

The money you spend in making sure your site is web standard compliant will save
you money in pay per click costs as well as site maintenance. While there are
many things to consider in marketing your site, this is one of the easiest and
most important steps you can take to increase the success of your site over the
long term.

Further reading: Programming Matters for Search Engine Optimization, The Dollars and Sense of Building to Standards

What You See Is Not Always What You Get!

What You See Is Not Always What You Get!

Depending on your browser and personal settings, you may have noticed a size difference or perhaps the fonts are different. Regardless, the odds are you missed one of the most important differences, the fact that the first line has meaning and the second does not … well at least to a search engine.

The difference is in the programming or, more accurately, the markup. Whatever you want to call it, the underlying HTML code that is used to make this page can have a significant impact on how a search engine indexes the page, and therefore how well your page performs in the search engines.

The first line used an <h3> tag, telling the search engine this is a header, that it has important meaning pertaining to the content of the page. Here’s the actual underlying HTML:

<h3>What You See Is Not Always What You Get!</h3>

The second line, although it appears important visually, has no special meaning to a search engine. Here’s the underlying HTML code :

<p><strong><span style="font-size: 1.4em;">What You See Is Not Always What You Get!</span></strong></p>

So what does this mean in the end? It means that what you see is not always what you get. Two identical looking pages created by two different people can have significantly different results with search engines. When a search engine indexes a page it crawls through the underlying HTML code for the page and uses special markup tags, such as the <h3> tag, to try and deduce meaning and the relevance of certain words and phrases on the page. The <h3> tag has semantic meaning for the search engine. Search engines plug this information into their page ranking equations which are used to determine the page’s rank. The page that was styled with font-size selection (the second example above) provides no additional semantic meaning for the search engine and is therefore a miss opportunity providing little or no impact on it’s ranking in the search engine.

The example above, with the <h3> tag, is a very simple example with only one of the many HTML tags used to create web pages. A very common problem in the web design industry centers around the lack of understanding of the importance of the web page’s underlying HTML code. There are many WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) tools used by designers that allow them to create great looking pages without having to understand how HTML works because the tool produces the HTML for them. The problem, as many companies are finding out the hard way, is that these tools do not always produce search engine friendly HTML code. I’m not suggesting that these tools can’t do this to some degree, but the tool will likely miss many opportunities for optimization and is therefore no substitute for a solid understanding of HTML and the way search engines interpret it.

Ensuring good search engine practices are being followed during initial development will always be more cost effective than trying to fix the problem after the website has been launched and no one shows up to view it.

Google and Yahoo are now claiming that they can index Flash files, or at least partially, but it is still recommended for optimal crawling to include text and html on your site. Vanessa Fox from Google writes on their blog “Images, flash, and other multimedia make for pretty web pages, but make sure your core messages are in text or use ALT text to provide textual descriptions of your multimedia. This is great for search engines, which are based on text: searchers enter search queries as word, after all. But it’s also great for visitors, who may have images or Flash turned off in their browsers or might be using screen readers or mobile devices.”

So how can Flash be used effectively?

Flash is a useful tool that enables you to add animation, video and other interactive multimedia features to your site. It should be used as an element, rather then the only feature on your site, “Think Flash movies, not Flash sites” as Shari Thurow states in her article on SearchEngineWatch’s ClickZ Network. Also having great content and text accented with some Flash will help ensure your site’s visibility in the search engines.

That does not mean that Flash should be avoided altogether because it is still as great way to add fun interactivity to your site. Just make sure you optimize your pages with content as well.

Further reading: SearchEngineWatch.com