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How to make your web site more search engine friendly.

Below are two generic web pages. One uses frames, and one does not. Search engines expect your web page to look like one of these examples. If it doesn't, they may ignore you. Notice the parts of the structure I have highlighted in red. I'll explain what each of these parts does, and the proper way to use them. If you like, you can cut and paste these examples to use as templates for your your own web pages.

No-Frames Example
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Title Goes Here.</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A brief description of your site's content goes here.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="1st keyword, 2nd keyword,..., Nth keyword">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
The content of your page goes here.
</BODY>
</HTML>

Frames Example
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Title Goes Here.</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A brief description of your site's content goes here.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="1st keyword, 2nd keyword,..., Nth keyword">
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET>
<FRAME> Defines your 1st frame.
<FRAME> Defines your 2nd frame.
  o
  o
  o
<FRAME> Defines your Nth frame.
</FRAMESET>
<NOFRAMES>
Content for search engines and non-frames capable browsers goes here
</NOFRAMES>
</HTML>

The Title Tag
Your page does have a title right? You would be amazed to know how many people forget this obvious and vital item. Your title must be located between the <HEAD> and the </HEAD> tags. Your title should be between 5 and 8 words in length. It should be descriptive of your site. Don't use all capitals, and don't use generic words. For best placement, keep the title clean, no matter what sort of content your site has.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are optional, but highly recommended if you want a good placement on some search engines. There are many types of meta tags. I'm only going to discuss the two types the search engines want to see.
- The Meta Description Tag
  The meta description tag has the following form:
  <META NAME="description" CONTENT="A brief description of your site's content goes here.">
  Like the title, it must be located between the <HEAD> and the </HEAD> tags. The description contained inside this tag is often the text that gets listed under your title in your search engine listing. Keep this in mind when you design your meta tags. Your title and meta description are your only chances to grab people's attention, and get them to visit your site. Make good use of them. Limit your description to 200 characters or less.
- The Meta Keywords Tag
  The meta keywords tag has the following form:
  <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="1st keyword, 2nd keyword,..., Nth keyword">
  The keywords contained in this tag are used by the search engines to classify the content of your site. This tag must also be located between the <HEAD> and the </HEAD> tags. Comb through the content of your site. find the words that best express the subjects, themes and ideas presented in your site. These are the words that need to go in the meta keywords tag. You can also include plurals, synonyms, and common misspellings of your keywords. Attempting to lure in more hits by loading down your keywords with popular words not related to your content is considered very bad form, and may get you kicked off of some search engines and promotional sites. Some search engines will penalize you for repeating key words too often. Don't use the same words more than once or twice. Most search engines will only look at the first 800 characters of your keywords, but infoseek looks at up to 1000.
The Noframes Tag
If your site uses frames, the content between the <NOFRAMES> and the </NOFRAMES> tags is the only part of your site that will be visible to non-frames capable browsers. It's also the only part outside the <HEAD></HEAD> section that the search engines can understand. Many search engines will ignore frame based sites unless the noframes tag is used properly. Ideally, you should provide a complete non-frames version of your site here. This is not always practical. As an absolute minimum, you can cut and paste some of your most important content into the noframes section. This will give the search engines something to work with. You should also include links to all of your site's pages here, so the search engines can spider them.

How to make your web site more user friendly.

If your page is not user friendly, your visitors will leave quickly, and not come back. They may even give your site bad word of mouth on various news groups. This is the kiss of death if you are selling something on your web site. Put a little effort into making your site easy to use.

Make your page load quickly. Don't slow it down with big graphics, full motion video, animated GIFs, MIDI files, or sound effects. Use these bandwidth hogging effects only when you absolutely need them to get your point across. The number one complaint people have about the web is slow loading pages. If your page takes longer than 15 to 20 seconds to load, many people will give up, and go elsewhere.
Keep your pages accessible to everyone. Don't use features that require the latest browsers or plug ins to view. This is especially important if you are building a business web site. Don't lock out potential customers.
Put the important content up front. Don't make people search through page after page of of stuff they aren't interested in to get to the stuff they are interested in.
Make your pages easy to read. Avoid combinations of background and text colors that are hard on the eyes. Avoid background images that make the text hard to read. Make sure your font size is not too small or too large. Inspect your pages at different screen resolutions. Make sure your site works well no matter how it is viewed.
People hate to scroll. Break up big pages into smaller ones, then create a system of navigation links, so people can move around easily.
Use a spell-checker, and have someone proof-read your pages.

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