Website Design and Search Engine Optimization

By Hardeep Mehta
http://www.rankmonitor.net

Flash and Search Engine Optimization:

Search engine crawlers are designed to efficiently read text- based websites. Although the search engine crawlers have evolved with the World Wide Web, essentially they are still most efficient in reading and finding text- based websites on the Internet. These is due to the fact that most websites on the Internet are heavily text- based and use minimal Flash.

This is not to say that if you make a website in Flash the search engines will completely ignore it. Some search engines like FAST and Google claim that they can index some part of the Flash objects on a web page. At the same time, if you give more importance to search- engine- friendly- design we would recommend making minimal use of Flash.

JavaScript and Search Engine Optimization:

Although search engine crawlers can read the JavaScript code and possibly separate and pick out keywords, they still cannot effectively process the JavaScript code like an advanced web browser could. One well-known fact is that search engine crawlers cannot navigate JavaScript- based links. This means that all the links that you put on your website using JavaScript are invisible to the search engine crawlers, to provide maximum exposure to all your web pages you should use simple HTML- based links to on your website. If you have to use JavaScript, you should include the <noscript> tag with the JavaScript code. Most search engine crawlers rely on and use the information presented within the <noscript> tags.

Dynamic Websites and Search Engine Optimization:

A lot of webmasters would like to create data driven dynamic websites for various reasons. You may want to personalize the user experience and provide highly targeted information to the customer to get maximum results. Is it possible to achieve this goal and at the same time make your website visible to the search engine crawlers? Of course it is, at least to a certain extent. Here are some suggestions for creating dynamic content that can be indexed by the search engine crawlers.

Do not use session-based navigation, password authentication or other sophisticated authentication methods to provide information. Search engine crawlers navigate through the Internet in a very different way than a normal web surfer using advanced browsers like Internet Explorer. They cannot initiate sessions and are not aware of the username/password information required to access your website. If your website uses similar methods, the search engine crawlers will not be able to index your website. In such cases, you should create some content rich static pages which provide the core message about the business and website. This will enable your presence in the search engines.


Keep the URL of the web page "static." In other words, your web page can use any programming language and pull data from various sources creating a completely dynamic web page, as long as the URL/link of the page is constant, the search engines will be able to crawl and index your web page. Using the GET method to pass information (which adds "?" and "&" to the URL) might make the user experience better but may not necessarily be readable by the search engine crawlers. Instead use "POST" method to pass information from one page to another.
Robots.txt files and Search Engine Optimization:

You should make use of the robots.txt file on your website. This file informs the various search engine crawlers when you want your website (or specific web pages) indexed by the search engine crawlers. You can find more information about robots.txt file here.

Content Management Systems and Search Engine Optimization:

Companies using content management systems to publish and update content on their website should make sure that the application generates search engine friendly HTML code. If you want your website to take full advantage of search engine traffic, this should be an important factor in deciding upon a content management system.

Use of Images and Search Engine Optimization

Search engines cannot read images. Meaning that a search engine crawler cannot tell what message a particular image is conveying. In order to make your website "Search Engine Friendly," the use of images should be kept to minimum and where images are used you should include the HTML ALT tag with the image. You should also provide a brief description of the image around the text. Search engines look for the text around the image to understand the content of the image.

Conclusion

In this article we have covered website design from search engine optimization point of view. I hope that this discussion gave you some useful ideas about search engine optimization and steps you can take to make your website even more search engine friendly.