Year in and year out we see adjustments in search engine requirements and new scripting techniques. The later part of 2009 brought many quiet changes in SEO and some major announcements as well. Being good at something starts with being ‘Brilliant At The Basics”. HTML and how a page is coded should follow some basic standard guidelines to ensure search engine readiness and optimization. Most if not all of these should be rock solid before a site is launched. They seem simple but without them, you face search engine uncertainty. Google announced earlier in 2009 that it no longer reads the meta keywords. Don’t write them off though, they are now more important than ever.

Follow these basic SEO coding standards and utilize your keywords to ensure proper search engine placement.

Title Tag – No more than 70 characters

Recommended Title Tag Syntax Keyword < Category | Website Title

Meta Description - No more than 155 characters

Common Canonical Homepage Issue -
Great – http://www.mysite.com/
Unacceptable – http://www.mysite.com
http://mysite.com/
http://www.mysite.com/index.html
http://mysite.com/index.html

To condense the four default homepages into one homepage, use 301 redirects to correct for erroneous incoming links and make all internal links point to your domain using the syntax ‘http://www.mysite.com/’. Always include trailing “/” on folders.

H1,H2,H3 -
<h1>Most Important</h1>
<h2>Second Most Important</h2>
<h3>Third Most Important</h3>

Bold, Strong – <b>Keyword</b>

Image – <img src=”keyword.jpg” alt=””keyword”/>

Hyperlink – <a linkindex=”334″ href=”http://www.mysite.com/webpage.html” title=””keyword””>Keyword in Anchor Text</a>

Hyperlink – <a linkindex=”335″ href=”http://www.mysite.com/webpage.html” title=””keyword”>(No Followed) rel=”nofollow”>Keyword in Anchor Text</a>

Page File Size- No more than 150 kilobytes (Before Images, and other Attachments)

Amount of links – No more than 100 unique links per page

As you can see, keywords are still very important. Its best to use what would be your meta keywords for each page as your outline or frame of reference from which to write. I try to keep a list of my targeted keywords on my desk as I write pages and posts. then as you layout the coding for your page, your keywords will remain consistent. So while Google may not read your meta keywords, blatantly ignoring the inherent advantages may be a fatal mistake. Did I miss anything obvious?

© 2009-2010 Advantage Ecommerce Solutions Web Strategy Blog | Using Keywords – Important SEO HTML Basics

• Assuming that your site looks perfect in all browsers just because it looks good in your own. Not cross browser testing a site before it’s posted online is a major web sin.



Image by samuelcarvalhodg via Flickr

• Fixed font size. Web designers take power too seriously at times using CSS to turn off the adjust text browser button on the end users machine. Most standard text is just to small. Now that I’m a little bit older, I feel the pain. Leave my font choices alone.
• Flash Intros, Flash sites, excessive bells, whistles and hoopla. There is a time and a place for anything. I would like to be able to choose my time and place. If your going to do it, at least have a skip intro button available for those of us that do not care and/or those still on slow connections.
• Popup windows, windows that open countless other windows and windows that push yet another window in your face after you hit the close button asking if you are sure you don’t want to chat with customer service before you leave. Does this need any further explanation?
• Writing to an audience other than the audience that will be reading it. Example….writing a book instead of a blog entry. This is the web – Short, Sweet and to the Point!
• I hate PDF’s and waiting for them, however, the worst part is when I have to register and give personal information first just to get the pdf link to download. I have dummy email addresses just for that purpose. I check them, they are just not my everyday email addresses.
• Customer Service on a merry go round. I reorganized a customer service department a few years back made up of two people. One answered every question with a rambling riddle that resembled English but was not. The other answered every question with a question. They actually had people regularly email them back saying, “hello you did not answer my question”. Frustrating, very frustrating!
• Customer Service outsourcing to nations where their grasp of the English language is unlike our own or the accent is so thick they cannot be understood. I have tone deafness in both ears. It’s hard enough for me to understand some people face to face let alone around the world and not pronouncing words as I know them. I end up having to say “what did you say” so many times, I’m sure they get mad.
• Visited Site links that do not change color is an issue for me. I normally have so many tabs working…this is the 21st Century..multitasking, that I never remember which links I have looked at and not looked at. Having visited liinks that do not change color after visiting confuses me and gets me irritated. I have a simple fix though. I enter the CSS for the page through Firefly and change it so when I am looking at the page….it is right for me
• Last but not least…my biggest blunder of them all…. Not using the spell checker. Duh, it only takes one push of a button. I think they call that a no-brainer and it makes a terrible first impression. Need I say more?

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© 2009-2010 Advantage Ecommerce Solutions Web Strategy Blog | Top 10 Web Design and E-Business Mistakes