Many small businesses have had the misfortune of hiring a web designer (who may have been very expensive) only to discover that their new site looks great, but doesn’t show up in Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. They are stuck with a web site that potential customers can’t find, which is certainly a poor investment. So how can you avoid winding up with one of these duds?

Simple. First, understand what “search-engine-friendly” means, so you can know what to ask when choosing a designer for your web site. Then, ask for it.

What is a Search-Engine-Friendly Web Site?

A search-engine-friendly web site is one that is designed in such a way as to be readable by the spiders (computer programs) that search engines use to read and index pages on the Internet. If your site is search-engine-friendly, it will be more likely to show up in search results when you type in certain keywords. For example, if you search for your company name on Google, your web site will always come up as one of the top results if your web site is search-engine-friendly.

Text Links vs. Image Links

The first thing to remember about Internet spiders is that unlike their living counterparts, they don’t have eyes. This means that if there is text on your site that is part of an image file, web spiders can’t read it.

For example, try clicking and dragging your mouse across this paragraph to highlight it. You can highlight each individual word of this paragraph because it is actual text that is wrapped in html code. Spiders can read text like this, and they will index everything that is written in actual text. The more text content your site has, the better. If you fill it with relevant keywords, the more likely your site will be to show up in search engine results when someone types in those keywords.

Spiders cannot read text that is part of image files, such as text that is part of a logo, or some navigation schemes. Try highlighting individual words or letters on the logo at www.zensamarketing.com–you can’t really do it. That text is invisible to spiders, so unless your webmaster tags the image with additional text, a search engine will have no idea what that image says.

A search-engine-friendly web site designer will use as much plain text as possible, even if it means not being able to use fancy fonts. This is the only way to make a web site accessible to the spiders. If a web designer does use images for navigation buttons, logos, or other areas, she should place redundant text links behind the images or at the bottom of the web site to make sure spiders can find every page in the site.

Title Tags and other Meta Tags

Your web site should contain certain tags in the code on every page. The text a web designer places in these tags will not show up in the body of the web site itself, but it may show up in other places. Search engines use the text in these tags to help determine what your site is about and whether or not it should return your page as a result for a particular search.

The most important tag your web site can contain resides in the “title” tag. The text your web developer chooses to code into the title tag shows up in the very top bar of your browser (or in the tab, if you are using a browser that uses tabs). For example, if you look at the top bar of your web browser right now, you can see that the title tag reads: “Search Engine Friendly Web Sites.”

You should have a unique title tag for every page, and that title tag should pertain directly to the content that is on the page. Search engines tend to rank sites lower if web designers have not taken the time to write a unique title tag for every page on the site or if the title tag isn’t relevant to the content on the page.

Meta tags containing description and keyword text should also be included in the code for every page, and this text should also be unique to each page and relevant to the content you can see. Often times, a search engine will display this text in its search results, which means this invisible text is the very first impression of your company many of your web site visitors will receive. Therefore, the importance of having a designer who has taken the time to write well-crafted description tags cannot be understated. Always ask your designer what they have written in the description tags.

Have a Site Map

Text links function as doorways to other pages. Therefore, if you have one page on your site that contains text links to every single other page on your site, that means a spider can go to that one single page and use it as a doorway to get to every other page on your site. Spiders like site maps because site maps make it easy for them to make sure they have indexed all of your pages. So make sure you have a text link leading to a site map on every page of your site–especially your home page.

Use Static (not Dynamic) URLs Whenever Possible

A dynamic URL looks like this: http://www.domain.com/product.php?cid=1&pid=5

A static URL contains no question marks and looks more like this:

http://www.zensamarketing.com/services.htm

Typically database-driven web sites built on platforms like Joomla or Wordpress generate a lot of dynamic URLs. Search engines prefer static URLs, so try to make sure your most important pages live on static URLs.  Your web designer should easily be able to adjust your web site’s settings so that your URLs appear static and not dynamically generated.

What’s the difference between Search Engine Optimization and Search-Engine-Friendliness?

A site that is search-engine-friendly means a site that Google, Yahoo, and other search engines can find. A site that is search engine optimized (SEOed) is a site that has been engineered to show up high in search engine results for specific keywords and phrases.

Everyone can and should have a search engine friendly site. SEOing your site can get tricky and expensive, particularly since search engine algorithms are trade secrets and trying to game them is not an exact science. Some leading SEO providers charge as much as $100,000 a year for their SEO services.

Small businesses often find that they can generate more web site traffic for significantly less money through pay-per-click services such as Google Adwords, although there is also a definite strategy for using pay-per-click services as well.

Conclusion

It’s a waste of money to buy a beautiful site that isn’t also search-engine-friendly. By learning how search engines work and setting up your pages in a format they like, you will receive more traffic to your web site. Always ask your web designer if they know the basics of building a search-engine-friendly web site before you hire them.

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