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User and Search Engine Friendly Content

The content of a website is most powerful tool for selling products or services and things like graphics, animations etc etc is important to make your website visibly sound. Good content is way to attract your visitors to stay on website and explore about products and services you are selling and an optimized content with smart use keywords is key for high search engine rankings.

While writing content for a website follow some tips:

Consistency – Make content consistent from page to page. Your objective should be consistent through out website.

Active Content – Always use active words in content to making visitor feel like a participant rather than a passive reader. Always inspire them to take an action.

No Error Content – Content on a website should be free from any grammatical or spelling mistakes.

Selling Idea – Most of websites have content describing features of their product or services, do not write about what your product/service have but write about how can it is beneficial for customers.

Call of Action – Your call of action text (buy now, get demo etc.) should be clearly visible to visitor wherever your visitor is on your website.

Content for Search Engines – A search engine friendly content does not mean a stuffed content with lot of keywords. Try to use your keywords smartly in your content with proper density of keyword. Never try to spam by hiding your content.
Try to link you text (keywords) to relevant internal page of website that will really help to boost performance of linked page.

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Search Engine (SEO) Friendly Navigation Structure

Navigation structure of a website plays a major role in guiding web crawler (search engine bot) to index your website. A non search engine friendly navigation can lead to major problems in search engine rankings. So try to make your navigation simple and manageable.

Following are some tips for creating a search engine (SEO) friendly navigation for your website:

1. Logo – In most of websites Logo is on top left of website. It is good practice to link your logo to home page (not domain.com but domain.com/index.html) from every page.

2. SiteMap – Sitemap is basically an index of web pages a website has and it is necessary for a website. Make your html and XML sitemap and place a link on top of home page. Avoid placing sitemap link on every page.

3. Avoid Image Links – As we all know search engine spiders don’t read text in images, try to avoid images for navigational links. Always use text links for navigation and use CSS (cascading style sheets). If you really need to use images for links then give a keyword rich ALT attribute.

4. No JavaScript Menus or Links – Search engine spiders do not read text written in JavaScript and will not follow link defined in JavaScript. So do not use JavaScript for your internal linking.

5. Avoid Links in Flash – Search engine bots (crawlers) are not able to index/follow links defined in flash.

6. No Image Maps – Do not use image maps for navigation.

7. Dynamic Site Navigation – we usually see lots of queryString characters (?) in URLs for dynamic websites e.g., shopping portals. When you are designing a dynamic website (php, asp etc) try make your URLs with less or NO querystring. Use some URL rewriting techniques to make URLs search engine friendly.

*Note – If there is situtation where you want all these non search engine friendly techniques (JavScript, Flash, ImageMaps) for navigation then try to make an alternative navigation panel for search engines like on bottom of page use text links for navigation.

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Website Meta Tag Optimization

When your website is ready to launch there are some important terms that you should take care just placing text and images is not enough to make your website search engine friendly. You have to put some keyword rich and optimized Meta tags, alt attributes for images, keywords in your content and anchor text for internal linking.

Following is brief description and benefits of using Meta and other tags:

  • Make Optimized Title Tag: The most effective tag for getting high search engine ranking is tag. Title tag is main linked text in search engine ranking pages. Writing good title tag does not mean to make it just bundle of comma separated keywords, use 1-2 your primary keywords (key phrases) to make your title descriptive. Creating title with just keywords can cause penalize your website from search engine indexing? Try to make your title within 50-80 characters including spaces. You have very limited space to place your primary keywords so avoid using stop words like ‘is’ ‘the’ ‘of’ etc. Do not write your company name in starting, if you want to put brand name in title just place in end or middle of title. If you are targeting specific region put name of region (city, country) in your title tag.

  • Make Optimized Description Tag: The second important Meta tag in your web page is Meta Description tag. All major search engines like Google, yahoo, MSN shows your description just below the title of web page in SERP (Search engine ranking Pages). It gives brief description of your website and its services. In description you have freedom to make it 80-100 characters long including spaces, so try use 3-4 your major targeted keywords in a descriptive way. Try to use same keywords you used in title tag to make it more relevant and it will help for high search engine ranking. The description tag is like preview about web page containing that description tag, so do not use irrelevant content (that is not available in web page content).


  • Keywords Tag: This tag is used to place you keywords in a comma separated form, but it hardly affects your search engine ranking. Most of search engines do not give any importance to keyword Meta tag but still there are some search engines which counts this tag. So it is good to place all your important keywords in Meta keywords tag.
  • Heading Tags Optimization: The heading tags are also play vital role for search engine rankings. These HTML tags start from H1 till H6. Headings are generally used to highlight important information or service about any web site. Use most relevant and primary keyword in your heading tag. Place heading tag in just start of your web page content and below heading tag just describe your service declared in heading tag.
  • Image ALT Attribute: It is one the most important term in a web page. ALT is an attribute of Image (img) tag. Its basic purpose is to put an alternative text for situation where images cannot be displayed. All major search engine crawlers do not read images so for those spiders ALT attributes do its task. So you can also add your important keywords in your image alt attribute but place keyword relevant to image and content of the web page.
  • Anchor Text: Hyperlinked text or anchor text is text linked to any other page (external or internal). In web page content placing some links to make your important keywords as anchor text can also be helpful.

Some other things to take care of is to make your important keywords or key phrases bold in web page content, use good and unique content for every web page of your website.

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Search Engine (SEO) Friendly Website Design Factors

Design of a website is most important part of a website’s success on search engine rankings and traffic. It is only your websites designs and navigation structure that can make it easy for search engine spiders to read valuable content from your website and decide theme of your website. So before starting a website you must take care about design and navigation structure of website. It should be simple and easy.

Following are some website design factors that can affect your search engine rankings:

  • Navigation: Your website navigation should be simple and clear. Use text links to navigate to every web page on you website. Avoid use of JavaScript or Flash Link menu for navigation. Use unique and professional color combination on each & every page of the website; avoid using different colors and fonts on different pages of you website. Place your Logo on top-left part of website and link it to your home page with respective ALT attribute by using your primary key phrase. Make a html and xml site map and give a link to it only from home page. Using a bread crumb (link ladder) for navigation can also be helpful for users and search engine. Use your important keywords in bread crumb for linking.
  • CSS: Try to make table less web pages because web pages designed by using DIV tags are rated higher than web pages with tables. Using DIV for web page design is also easy to maintain and update. Do not define your styles in your webpage code make a style sheet (.css) file to define all style and give reference to that css file to use.


  • Avoid Flash and JavaScript: Using heavy flash animations can make your website attractive but search engine spiders don’t like flash and java script on any web page so try to use simple & light (gif, jpeg) images for designing. Do not include your JavaScript code in your web page HTML code keep all JavaScript code in different JavaScript (.js) file and give reference to respective where you want to use that JavaScript Code.


  • Content: Content on a website is it’s key to get higher rank and attract search engine spiders. Search engine spiders like site with useful content on it. So give a brief description of your services or type of products you are dealing in on home and link that brief information to specific landing page relevant to that description.


  • Avoid Frames and Image Maps: Some web designers use frames for websites that is of no use according to search engine spiders. Search engine crawlers don’t like sites in frames so avoid use frames. Image Map is way to divide a single image to different portions and link those parts to specific page. Links defined in image map is not readable by search engine crawlers. So try to avoid image mapping for your navigation.

There are lots of tips to make your website search engine friendly I am describe in later posts.

For more detailed information just go through Google Webmaster Guidelines to make your website search engine friendly.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Post your valuable comments!

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Tips for Website Design

After choosing suitable domain name and hosting provider the next and most important thing is website design & development. A proper and user interactive design is most crucial part of any online business growth. Your website design must be user as well as search engine friendly. Your website must have simple and smooth design with genuine color combination and relevant use of images according your website theme. Avoid use of heavy animated images or flash animations on your website that can slow down your website. You can make your website attractive and fast by using light images and with good color combination. Use a unique logo for website because it will be unique identity for your online business, try to make same logo as you use on your off line business. Use good informative content on website because content on any website is key to its success on search engines. Define your services with relevant text description. Try to make your website static as much as possible with no or less use of heavy scripting.

If you are going for dynamically driven or CMS based website you need to take while selecting a good content management system. It should not have lots of query string in URLs. Your website URLs must be static for each and every page.

I will describe some major factors to make your website search engine friendly in next post.

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Choosing Reliable and Secure Hosting Service Provider

The Second and most important thing on which your website’s performance and business growth that is choosing good hosting provider. There are thousands of web hosting providers over the web but the thing is who is most reliable and suitable for your online business. Selecting a hosting provider depends on your business requirements like what kind of web pages you are going to use and what should they do. Will your page be only static HTML pages or dynamic websites with lots of scripts and heavy images and animations? After research on your basic requirements now you have to select best hosting provider from list.

Following are some tips while choosing your web hosting provider:

  • Reliability: The first and most important thing you have to keep in mind is uptime. Web hosting provider giving less than 95% uptime is of no use. Your hosting provider must have 99.9% uptime to run your website smoothly and efficiently.

  • Bandwidth and Data Transfer: the second important thing needs to be considered is how much bandwidth they are providing and at what prices. If you are going to use huge sized multimedia files for uploading and downloading process you have to pay for extra band width, so before selecting hosting provider have a deep look on their pricing structure.

  • Operating System: What operating system that hosting company providing to place your data is it according to your requirements?

  • Disk Space: Is your hosting provider offers you enough space for placing your multimedia and heavy script file to rum effectively?

  • Secure Data Backup: You website is your online business so data placed on your websites must have regular backups to avoid any inconvenience that could cause big loss in your online business.

  • Complete Technical Support: Online help or support from any hosting company is most essential part of a hosting provider and most critical to success. You hosting provider must have 24×7 online support services to help when you are in crunch.

  • Email Account: how many email accounts is being provided to you and how many emails you can send in a particular is also an important feature of good a hosting provider.

  • Other Web Designing/Development Tools: Is your hosting provider gives you access to web stats, web designing tools, ftp access and other useful tools in its hosting plan.
So these are some basic tips that can use to select reliable and secure hosting provider.
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Selecting Good Domain Name

Selecting an appropriate domain name is most crucial and important step whenever you think about starting online business. You have to do some serious research before selecting a domain name for your online business because domain name will be identity to your business so it should be unique and relevant to your business and services/information you are going to provide. You domain name must be some sensible and grammatical word that can describe your services and do not make a long queue of characters, try to make your domain name short and easy to pronounce & understand.


Selection of good and suitable domain name can reduce your competition level up to 20%. If you are planning for some internet marketing on your website then selection of domain name is more important. You have to do some keyword research and choose some good keywords (with good search count and less experience) relevant to your business services. Some of most popular free keyword suggestion tools available online are Wordtracker, Overture, Google and many more. After selecting some relevant keyword go for domain name search with those keywords. Having a good and relevant keyword in your domain name can help a lot to get higher rank on major search engines, because all major search engines give preference to websites having their primary keyword in domain name. If you are serving local visitors then selecting a regional domain names can also be helpful.


Following are some basic tips for selecting a domain name:

  • Keep it short – Try to use easy to type and pronounce words in your domain name.
  • Use your primary keyword in domain name
  • Domain name with your brand name
  • Country level domain names – If you are targeting local visitors then try to use country level extensions for your name like .co.uk (for UK), .co.in (for India) and others.
  • Use of hyphens in domain name – using hyphens in domain has both advantages and disadvantages. If you are using your main key phrase in your domain name use of hyphens can help to make it search engine friendly but disadvantage is that it will be difficult to type for users.
  • Multiple domains – having a multiple domains can also be helpful for your business.

So you must do some mind stroking before selecting domain name for your website.

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Complete Search Engine Optimization Guide

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the most popular way to boost your online business by increasing your online visibility. Online business can be a small informative website or a large scale shopping portal. Popularity of a website is directly proportional to number of unique and returning visitors you site is getting. Having a huge website with lots of attractive graphics and animations is of no use if you are not getting relevant traffic. We all know 70-80% of website traffic depends on search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, because people use these search giants to find their useful products or information. To achieve relevant targeted visitors and high ranking these major search engines your website must follow their ranking algorithms. You have to optimize your website to get higher rank rather than waiting for to be found by visitors personally. There are many factors that can affect your search engine that we need keep in mind.


Following are brief list of such factors:

  • Selecting appropriate domain name
  • Fast and reliable hosting provider
  • User and Search Engine Friendly Design
  • Easy Navigation Structure
  • Good amount of content
  • Appropriate meta tags with proper keywords
  • … and many more.
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