In Part 1
of our series about SEO best practices we discussed maintaining correct
source code standards. We talked about CSS, AJAX, ALT attributes, Page
file size, JavaScript, and Meta tags. Now we’re going to delve even
deeper and talk about some of the often overlooked elements within a
website as it relates to search engine optimization.
CONTENT
Flash
Search engines cannot read the contents of a Flash file. They can’t
see if there is any text in the Flash movie or what that text might say.
If you use Flash on your page, make certain to include lots of
descriptive text in close proximity to where the Flash is displayed in your page layout.
Frames
Frames in their most basic configuration consist of one web page
within another web page. Search engines cannot make a determination as
to the relationship of each page within frames. Search engines may find
out about an individual web page through
a direct link to that page, but typically the content inside of a frame
cannot be indexed by the search engines through the frameset tag within
the source code. Avoid using frames if you can.
Graphics as Text
Search engines are unable to read text embedded into an image file
and are unable to determine a relationship with a graphic that is
hyperlinked to another page or file. For that reason, you need to ensure
that you use a descriptive ALT text attribute in your IMG statement or a
CSS image replacement method.
Hidden Text
If you have hidden text on your page using CSS display tricks or if
the font color is the same as the background color and you’re doing that
because you think it will help your search engine rankings, remove the
text from your page immediately. Hidden text should be avoided unless
it’s displayed through a toggle button tool tip or navigation
interaction.
Pagination
If you have lengthy content that is split into multiple pages, this
can make it more difficult for search engines to find and crawl all of
your content. Sometimes pagination is necessary, but try to avoid
needing it. If you really need to use pagination, then read this
excellent article about how to optimize pagination on your website for Google.
CRAWL/INDEXATION
404 Pages
Your web server should return a 404 header response for URL’s that do
not exist on your website. This indicates to search engines that the
page does not exist and should not be included in their search results.
Sometimes web servers are misconfigured to return a “Found OK” 200
header response. Test your web server using this free header response tool to find out how your web server responds to non-existent URL’s.
HTML Sitemap
Your HTML sitemap page should have links to all of the web pages
within your website. Use keyword rich, descriptive anchor text in the
links. Link to your HTML sitemap page from the footer or header of all
pages on your website and you’ll be providing your visitors with a way
to find content on your website and you’ll help the search engines to
find all of your content more easily too.
Rel=Canonical
The rel=canonical tag tells the search engines what page URL should
be used in the event that a page can be accessed through different
URL’s. Be sure to use the rel=canonical tag consistently throughout
every web page so that you can avoid issues with duplicate content.
XML Sitemap
XML sitemaps are more for machines to read than for humans. They are the most ideal way to inform the search engines which pages
you would like for them to index. XML sitemap files can help to get pages crawled and indexed. You can read more about XML
sitemaps here.
DOMAINS
Domain Parking/Forwarding/Aliasing
Lots of people and companies register a secondary domain name and
either park, forward or alias it to their primary domain name. For
example a company may own a .com and then register the .net variant of
their domain. The problem that often happens is that the secondary
domain name is incorrectly forwarded or aliased to the primary domain
using a “Temporarily Moved” 302 header response. The correct way is to
use a redirect that returns a “Permanently Moved” 301 header response.
Keywords Within Domain Names
Generally, if you’re running a business, it’s not a good idea to
register a lengthy domain name that is loaded with keywords because it
just looks silly. However, if your company name contains one or two
keywords with high search volume, then it might make sense to register a
domain name with your company name in it. Search engines do place some
weight on the words that appear in your domain name, making it sometimes
easier for your website to achieve high rankings for those keywords.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Link Consistency
When you link internally from one page on your website to another
page on your website be consistent with your link anchor text. Use the
same key phrase you are targeting within the anchor text in each link
pointing to that page from other pages on your website. Also, be
consistent with the URL you are using in each link. If there is more
than one URL that you can use to access the same page on your website,
pick one URL and stick to it. If you are consistent with your links
internally, your pages will perform better in the search engines.
Link Siloing
The way in which you organize the content on your website, whether
you group it together and link to it in bulleted lists or you display it
in a hierarchical drop down menu, doing so will help the search engines
to understand and make associations between your content and what your
pages are about. Just be certain to keep your content organizational
depth at a minimum to make sure your best content is not forgotten deep
inside your website.
Site Depth
Your most useful content should be at most two clicks away from the
home page. Your home page typically will attract the most back links
pointing to it. By keeping your most useful content no more than two
clicks from your home page you’ll be assigning
more link value to that content and it will perform better in the search engines.
This article is part 2 of a 3-part series. To be continued.
