Simply put, a website which is search engine-friendly is one which can be easily and quickly crawled and indexed. It is definitely to your advantage to make sure your website meets these criteria, as the payoff can be huge. In order for your targeted user to find your site—then love it so much they not only want to stay and read, but will tell all their friends about it—as well as climb the search engine ranking systems, your site must be SEO-friendly.
Keywords Matter
The first step in creating a site which is SEO-friendly is to identify your most valuable keywords. Your keywords are the backbone of your site, and choosing them quickly, or without putting enough thought into the matter will almost certainly come back to haunt you down the road. Take the time now, to thoroughly research your keywords and come up with the most specific, targeted, relevant keywords that could possibly exist for your particular website, product and service.
Use you keywords within your page URLs, and in your title tag for openers; the title tag is the very most valuable meta tag as it is “visible” text, so make sure your title tag has unique qualities on each and every page, while incorporating your best keywords. The text which comprises each of your pages must also have your keywords sprinkled throughout, but in a completely natural manner—sometimes easier said than done. The keywords need to be in your paragraph headers as well as the first sentence of your article, then need to appear with a 3-5% concentration throughout the article, with more of them appearing above the fold than below. Keeping your page text to approximately 400-600 words is considered ideal, making sure to have short, easily scannable paragraphs and plenty of bulleted or numbered lists.
Adding a blog to your website is an excellent way to attract the Google spiders. Make sure you not only offer your reader exceptionally high quality material which both engages their interest and teaches them something as well, but that each post is keyword-enriched, with words which are relevant to your topic.
Other Factors in Making Your Website SEO-Friendly
First, ensure your site is totally compatible with all major browsers, as sometimes they aren’t. Give every page a unique title and description, and always place the site’s menu in a place at the top which is visually easy to spot. Do your level best to avoid using Flash as well as frames. The reasoning behind this tip is that search engine spiders don’t index flash, meaning all the content you are expecting people to find and read is virtually worthless when it exists in a Flash file. If your entire site has been built around Flash, it is known in the industry as SEO suicide—avoid it at all costs. Spiders also have difficulty crawling through your website if it makes use of frames. Just like Flash, none of the content inside your frames will be able to be indexed, rather the spider will receive an error message and move on to a site they can index.
Finally, work with your site designer to ensure you are using a CSS navigational menu, making your navigational text able to be easily crawled and indexed. Even better, include a multi-level CSS drop down menu which will allow you to incorporate every page on your site into your menu. The makes it much easier for users, in that they have fewer clicks to get to a desired website, as well as giving them instant sitemaps. Keep your site SEO-friendly, and you will be richly rewarded in the not-too-distant future.
Tags: Lawyer Website Design
