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The basis of good web design is also often what makes search engine optimization effective in the ability of the search engine spiders to index web pages.

Follow the Industry Leader
When you are dealing with Google it is important to remember their primary goal is to help the search engine user. Since Google’s search engine is the leader in the search engine industry the other major search engines will follow their lead. When designing your website you want to make the website easy to navigate. Use optimization code that makes sense to the website visitor when they see it used in text on the page and in the title tag.

Optimization Text That Makes Sense
A good way to be sure your website works for your visitors is to read the text aloud after adding in your search engine optimization code. If it sounds stilted start rewriting. Have someone else read over your copy to be sure the optimization words you have added make sense and reads well to the typical website user. You need to capture your audience when they first visit your website. Give them a reason to stay once they arrive.

Inform Your Vistors
If the optimized tags and keyword text benefit the content of the text on the page, being informative on the information or products of the website, it is also beneficial to the human visitor. In this sense search engine robots “read” legitimate text and legitimate tags which help explain the content of the page not only to the human visitor but to the search engine robots as well.

Ease of Website Navigation
You want to have a search engine friendly design focusing on the navigational system you have in place for the website. Having a sitemap in place is helpful especially for those deeper pages of the website that may not be easily accessed by the on page navigation. Search engine spiders need to find those deep page links and you certainly want them to find the links on a page! Human visitors are able to pull down drop down menus or understand the intent of a graphic to travel through the website. As important as this is you must also include methods to make your website search engine friendly. Search engine spiders cannot push a button or use pull down menus. Some robots have difficulty with JavaScript menus. Make sure a sitemap is in place, and easily followed text navigation or graphic navigation is available so your web pages may be able to be followed by the bots. Ideally text navigation should be available with the added advantage of keyword anchor text but there are times design prohibits this choice. By providing easy to use navigation for humans and spiders you increase your chance at visitor retention and maximum indexing of your web page content.

Good Web Design Really Can Get Along With Quality Optimization
Not everyone is an SEO Copywriter. It can be difficult to tie in your search engine optimization text and the intent of the web page for the human visitor. Get creative and always keep in mind your website visitor. Well selected keywords should reflect what the web page is about. Enhance what is already on the page whenever possible. Marketing lingo may be great but sometimes you need to think about a wider audience. Knowing your target audience well will help you find your voice in your design of the website and your search engine optimization copy.

Developing a highly visited website, a “traffic worthy site”, is essential for your web site’s success. While developing the site, however, you need to keep in mind that not only is your site going to be seen by the human eye, but also by the nonhuman eye. How is that? Well, search engines along with their spiders and crawlers, will also be viewing your website. Having a sound web design, therefore, is crucial for bringing traffic to your site. How is this done?

First, you need to know what your company’s keywords are. What words come to your mind when describing your business or interest? These may be your keywords. Do online research to find out how popular they are. There are a variety of keyword selector tools that you can use for no charge. Yahoo’s Overture is a good one, another is Word Tracker. Once you have access to these keyword selector tools, simply type in what words are important to you and results will be displayed regarding their popularity. The results can also help you decide which words are most important and will bring the most visitors to your site.

Secondly, you need to know how to optimize your keywords to your advantage. This is known as keyword optimization. Your website must have good keyword optimization if it is to perform to its best advantage and bring you success from it. Keyword optimization is part of search engine optimization (SEO). You want, and need, to know how the search engines will notice your website. Also, each time a person searches for something online (search utilization) they type in the words that are important to them. Hence, they type in their keywords. Sites will pop up containing those keywords and offer the viewer a chance to visit the site which matches their needs. It is important to note that about 85% of humans arrive at websites via search engines. That is a large amount. See the importance of both knowing what your keywords are and how to optimize them to get the most success from the search engines? Search engine optimization is highly important to the success of your website.

The best part of keyword and search engine optimization is the fact that the results will send you targeted potential, prequalified customers. This is due to the fact that the person performing the search is specifically looking for what you offer. They are using your keywords.

Also remember that when developing your website, do not use a word processor. Word processing software is well known for containing a variety of sloppy, hidden codes which are not search engine friendly.

These are just a few things to take into consideration while developing a website that receives a high traffic volume. Use them and you can only benefit.

If you are going to all the trouble of developing a proper SEO web content piece, you may want to consider an overall strategy that uses a defined set of web content strategy articles instead. These articles wouldn’t be just a bunch of articles with keywords, but rather a constructed strategy designed to; better sell product, define your company and generally let the customer know what your company stands for.

Writing a few articles that include all the right words in all the right places may get you a place at the SEO table, but it won’t fully reflect the company and its true selling potential as a whole -other then selling a few widgets here and there. Taking an overview of your company and its products, and then putting together a full spectrum of interrelated SEO articles will not only accomplish the selling of your widgets more efficiently but also present your company in a light of your choosing.

The group supporting the whole

If this is a direction you might want to pursue, begin by looking at your product mix and see where the similarities lie between them. These connection points are where the SEO articles will be linked. They will also be the points where each article needs to flow as a secondary writing point (the first being the product you are writing about.)

Consider your linking points

From a general SEO perspective, you won’t want to get overly complicated in determining your linking points, considering the attention span of the average reader. You do, however, want to get your content points, SEO needs and selling pains across in the space you have. For the SEO requirements, consider your relevant .edu, .gov and .org links. Flow your relevant web content in such a way where a link can be inserted to confirm your point at the end of the point. Additionally, make your point on the primary product but make sure that your company’s other products are known in relation to your primary content article product. In this fashion, the same link can also support the other products that you will be writing about.

As you consider which link to use, make sure that you have several links to several of the differing .gov, .edu and .org sites with each leading to a different page. If you use just one link to a landing page you will receive credit from the web crawler for one good link. Use different pages at that link and you will receive a bit more credit for multiple good links. Ideally, you will want to sprinkle these links into the overall content (a few on each page of content), after the point is made. You will, however, want to place the links in such a way that you don’t lose the reader to the other site for good – or toward the bottom of the page but not at the bottom.

Product linking points

As you go about putting together your like products, think about their supply chain flow and where they come together before they make it to the customer. This is a good way to construct your web content strategy. If we were to consider fruit; we would see the growers, the pickers, the environmental conditions-worker and growing-, fruit variety, quality, distribution system, time to market and pricing. Taken together each totals the product chain. Taken as six separate sections each becomes a category where multiple web content articles can be generated with: company name on each page coordinated links, keywords, keyword locations and densities. Ultimately, these categories would end up focusing on; product, quality and worker/environmental care, freshness and price with each linked together within each individual piece of written content.  A link to the pricing page at the bottom of each content page would have order forms and buying considerations.

Product and company reach

Some might look at this concept and think it’s too much work and to expensive. A counter would say you don’t have to go all the way to the manufacture of the product to start putting together your content and that you can start and finish anywhere along the chain that you please. Another would also say that you don’t have to have much content on each page either. The average reader-after all – has the attention span of a fly so a little goes a long way if the piece is written correctly.

The other response, however, might say; how can you not afford to look at the web content aspects of your marketing plan this way. If you use the keyword “fruit” a few times on one page you may get a few hits if you have one page dedicated toward fruit in general. If you use separate pages for fruit with Florida oranges, Washington apples, avocados and/or your entire product base coupled with ABC Fruit Company where might the hits lead? You might also consider that once the project is done, all you’ll need to do is change a page or two every now and again to keep the web crawlers happy.

Spend your time wisely

Getting your SEO program to work effectively for your business takes some thought. It is not about throwing a few words down on the screen and hoping that it will bring in business. The process demands some thought about how you can best manipulate the SEO criteria that were given to you by the search engine companies and your customers. A solid strategy will, in a subtle manner, club the web crawler over the head with just what it wants-where it wants it and when it wants it. It will also make your customers feel comfortable doing business with your company by helping them easily find what they want whether it be a good or service. Making your choices carefully up-front will ultimately lead to more efficient use of time later on and increased profits.

Every owner of a website is interested in finding ways of getting more people to come visit their website. Many of the steps are the same as getting potential customers to come into your brick front store. There are more avenues with using a website, however. It is all a matter of knowhow.

Here are some proven free methods of increasing traffic to your website:

1. Start a blog. Blogging is the newest Internet “craze”. Well, blogging has been around for a few years, but the phenomenon continues to this day and is expected to grow even more in popularity. To succeed in this field, you simply develop your expertise on your chosen area and write (blog post) about it. At the end of each blog post simply put your website address. Also, many blog software allow blog postings to be posted directly onto your website.

2. Use social networking sites. Social networks (such as Squidoo, Reddit, de.licious, etc.) are very, very popular mediums for a wide variety of Internet users. This is a great way to socialize and become a part of a community. Just be certain you do not use these sites to simply sell something. That will not go over. Offer your expertise in your targeted area.

3. Write articles. By writing articles on your area of expertise, you can post them to numerous sites found on the Web. You establish yourself as an expert, and people will come to visit your website. Be sure to include a short bio on the bottom of each article and include your website address in it.

4. Help Wikipedia. You can write research papers on your area of expertise and include them in Wikipedia’s library. List yourself as a reference, along with your website. Not only will you be seen as an expert in the field, but your website will be viewed by millions.

5. Write optimized press releases. A well written press release will be heavy in targeted keywords and contain quality SEO content. Post these both in print and online publications.

6. Post to targeted blogs. Perform an online search targeting your area of expertise. Search by typing your keyword in quotes and follow with + blog. For instance, if my keyword is widgets, my targeted blog search would be “widgets”+blog. Then, once you enter the blog, post a comment. Include your website in the comment.

7. Post to YouTube. Make a video and post it to this popular site. It is highly responsive and free. And, place a link to your website in the video.

These are but a few of the many ways for you to increase your website’s traffic. They are a good beginning and will keep you busy for awhile. Good luck!

Any good site owner, webmaster or SEO will constantly be on the hunt for ways to get pages indexed more efficiently and as quick as possible. The bad news is that getting pages indexed is, for the most part, completely up to the search engines and we have no say as to the what and when. We do, however, have many ways available that can help the indexing process flow much smoother.

One of these methods is Sitemaps. Search engines use Sitemaps to find all of the content on your site. Not only can Sitemaps help search engines find your content, but the file itself will ping search engines every time you make a change to your pages.

How Does the Sitemap Work?

The Sitemap is a file, or separate HTML page that works similar to a link directory. The Sitemap page creates a full listing of internal hyperlinks to every one of your existing pages, which in turn helps search engines crawl deeper in to your site, and passes link juice throughout your pages. This in and of itself is a great tool in making sure your site is search engines friendly.

Also see the official Google explanation of what a Sitemap is:

In general, there are two types of sitemaps. The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site – often by section – and is meant to help users find the information they need.

XML Sitemaps – usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S – are a way for you to give Google information about your site. This is the type of Sitemap we’ll be discussing in this article.

In its simplest terms, a Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.

Sitemaps are vital in SEO, and every site should have one. If you’re using WordPress, you can try this simple Sitemap plugin that will do all the work for you. If you’re not on WordPress, you can use this guide to building a Sitemap for your site.

-Eric Odom