Search Engine Optimization

[Guest TedC]

Many very attractive and functional web sites appear invisable to many search engines. It is all well and good to design a great website but if it can't be found what good is it? I seems to me that many web designers do not even take being found int consideration or understand how search engines operate. A tutorial here would be benificial to all.

[aspnetguy]

Many very attractive and functional web sites appear invisable to many search engines.  It is all well and good to design a great website but if it can't be found what good is it?  I seems to me that many web designers do not even take being found int consideration or understand how search engines operate. A tutorial here would be benificial to all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That is for sure...I would love to see a SEO tutorial here.

[vchris]

That is for sure...I would love to see a SEO tutorial here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

+1

[boen_robot]

I don't think such tutorial should be considered a priority though. There is not much into SEO stuff. There just a few things you need to know.1. Register yourself within the engines, instead of waiting them to find you. That's already described in the Web Search setction of the Web Building tutorial.2. Write as clean and meanigful code as possible. Search engines place h1s with a priority over a plain text for example.3. Write appropriate keywords and descriptions. Giving some extra is a good thing as long as it isn't too far from the subject of the site.4. The only way to beat all the previous criterias is to have links to your pages from other sites. A page which is listed in already high ranked pages like Yahoo!'s and Microsoft's will be displayed far above than a page listed only inside some not well known site.Of cource, there are some details to all of theese, but considering the last criteria, there's no point of knowing them.

[aspnetguy]

I don't think such tutorial should be considered a priority though. There is not much into SEO stuff. There just a few things you need to know.1. Register yourself within the engines, instead of waiting them to find you. That's already described in the Web Search setction of the Web Building tutorial.2. Write as clean and meanigful code as possible. Search engines place h1s with a priority over a plain text for example.3. Write appropriate keywords and descriptions. Giving some extra is a good thing as long as it isn't too far from the subject of the site.4. The only way to beat all the previous criterias is to have links to your pages from other sites. A page which is listed in already high ranked pages like Yahoo!'s and Microsoft's will be displayed far above than a page listed only inside some not well known site.Of cource, there are some details to all of theese, but considering the last criteria, there's no point of knowing them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't know much about SEO but I heard Google is moving away from descriptions and keywords to determine rank because of all the 'off topic' keywords people place to try and boost their rank.One point that I have heard over and over is that if you get listed in the Yahoo and MSN searches it will greatly improve your google rank.Avoid creating pages with lots of hidden text. Google bases rank on how many times certain words are used ona page so some have tried to add lost of keyword text and then hide it or have those pages redirect to the real pages. BMW just got banned from google last month for this....that's right completely off Google.

[Skemcin]

Its important to understand tha BMW got banned for a combination of manipulations, that being javascript masked text, repetitive/irrelative content and excessive use of doorway pages. And that was only the germain domain - bmw.de. So you can still google bmw to death and get tons of results, just that domain has an index of zero. Here is a good article that explains it all:http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-01-n31.htmlAnyway, I think a search engine tutorial would be a good addition. Conceptually, it is as basic as boen_robot outlines. However, there is much more to the implementation and maintenance of good search engine positioning. In fact, SEO is a HUGE commitment to make and depending on your site's reason for existing, might not even be worth it.Its the later point that would need to be emphasized in the tutorial. I've dealt with large corporations and small mom/pop shops. And their respective SEO plans are completely different - if at all even in existance. For instance, a small mom/pop ski shop in the mid-atlantic region has no real need to worry about SEO. They need to focus more on conventional marketing techniques to drive visitors to their site. Too many people assume that because you have a website you have to have good search engine positioning - and that is not true. Another example, iribbit.net, I have no reason to worry about search engine positioning. I am one small needle in the very large haystack we call earth. So people have to understand the SEO is global - it is not local. Therefore, there are two things you HAVE to assume to make things work.a.) your keywords and content have enough relevance to identify your geographic target marketb.) your potential customers are internet savy enough to realize that they have to use more elaborate keywords to narrow their search - "real estate attorney" vs. "real estate attorney chicago, il"There are so many reasons why and how to create good SEO. It really is not as simple as using <h1> and <h2> tags, writing good copy, and submitting your site. And that's why I would support a good SEO Tutorial.

[Taviii]

2. Write as clean and meanigful code as possible. Search engines place h1s with a priority over a plain text for example.

What about code that validates? Does it make a difference? Everyone knows that google.com has about 50 errors so it would be logical that it shouldnt really matter, well except if your code is so bad that the robots cant crawl your site.