SEO Checklist for Web Designers

Layout

Don’t make search engine robots wade through hundreds of lines of code to get to your content. Keep your main content as close to the top of the HTML file as possible by linking to style sheets and javascripts instead of putting them in the head of the document.

Meta Tags

A common mistake is to use one set of Meta Tags for the entire site. Titles and meta tags should describe the page NOT the site. Take this opportunity to target different keywords for each page.

Flash

Designers (and their clients) love flash, however, it is one of the biggest roadblocksto search engine spiders. Incorporate your flash as mini .swf files inside an HTML file instead of designing entirely in flash. Search engines can’t read flash, nor can they follow the links to index the entire site. If you use flash buttons as your navigation, repeat those links as text in your footer or some other area of the page.

Frames

Never use frames. There is no reason to design with frames unless you don’t care that search engines index the site.

Linking and Architecture

The navigational architecture of your website is important for people but critical for search engines. Search engines (like Google™) find your pages by following links from other pages to you. When linking to other pages in your website use the keyword as the link text. For example; your home page is about widgets and you want to link to the premium widgets page – use the phrase “premium widgets” as the link text. Make a plan so your website doesn’t contain dead ends or orphaned pages. Create a site map with a link from your home page to help search engines index more of your website.

Inbound Linking

Just like your internal linking; external links (from other websites) should use the primary keyword as the link text. Vary the words and descriptions somewhat so your linking doesn’t look automated.

HTML Validation

Making certain your code is perfect is very important to search engine compatibility. Search engine crawlers are looking for specific areas of your code to index. Simple problems with the HTML code can cause them to skip sections of your page, not see the page at all or not be able to retrieve the content.

Page Content

For every page of the website you can target up to three keywords. Use the keywords in the content multiple times. Use bold and H1 (Heading) tags with keywords. Try to also use the keyword at the end of the content. Provide a minimum of 200 words per page.

Alt Tags

You can name your images using keywords. (example: widget.gif) When constructing your pages; use the same keyword for your Alt tags. It is debatable whether or not search engines consider Alt tags in their algorithms but they do read them.

Page Naming

You can name your pages using keywords. (example: widget.html) It is a fact that search engines scan the URL for keywords. You can also use directories in this manner. (Example: www.yourdomain.com/widgets/blue.html) The page blue.html should target the keyword phrase “blue widgets”. The index.html page of this directory should target “widgets”.