How to Build a Solid Site Structure for SEO

The SEO of a website is more than just the scattering of keywords.
It also means more than just achieving a page 1 ranking in the search
engines. Websites should be built primarily for your visitors, with
search engine friendliness a close second. It's all very well to focus
entirely on Search Engine Promotion and get a number 1 ranking, but
what good is all that work when the people who are visiting your site
take one look at it and would rather take their business
elsewhere?When planning your website design and development, make sure
that the designer you are using is aware of SEO and how to create a
search engine friendly website. If they're not, bring in your SEO
consultant initially to advise and work with the designer to get the
best results. Waiting until your website is complete before beginning
the SEO process can be a costly, frustrating and complicated mistake.
Having a search engine friendly design will lay a solid foundation to
build your SEO campaign.We have found that 'Word Press' sites perform
the best for search engine visibility, especially when you utilise
some of the SEO plugins like: 'All In One SEO', 'XML-Sitemap', and the
social plugins.If you already have a website up and running and don't
think it is ranking as it should, a website analysis or audit, will
highlight any structural and on-page issues that may be affecting your
site.So, what are the structural areas of a website?
There are three
initial areas to look at. Coding, Sitemaps and Robots File.If your
website contains excessive coding, search engine spiders can have a
hard time wading through it all to find what they're looking for. Make
sure your coding is clean, concise and well laid out. Use Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS) as much as possible. Avoid using tables. A great
way to check how easy it is for Search Engine crawlers to crawl your
pages is to use a the browser "Firefox" with the Add-on called "Web
Developer". Once you have installed this add-on and browsed to your
website, simply press Ctrl+Shift+S on your keyboard and it will remove
all styles from the browser and show you how the search engines view
your page. If all of the text and images align themselves on the left
hand side of the page in basic looking fonts (ie. no colours or
special formatting), then this is a good indication that your coding
is clean. However, if the layout of the page remains similar and
elements of the page don't move to the left, then this indicates that
you aren't utilizing CSS as much as possible. You can simply press
Ctrl+Shift+S to return your webpage to normal view.A robots file tells
search engine spiders what they should look at and what they
shouldn't. This is usually used to your advantage, but if it's applied
incorrectly, can be very damaging to your rankings. Google provides
guidelines and an online generator through their Webmaster Tools (all
you need is a Google account and access to your web server). We tend
to use the robots file to direct the crawlers to the XML sitemap,
which has an exact list of all the pages we want the search engines to
crawl.Having a comprehensive, well designed xml sitemap can be very
helpful in evenly distributing your page rank throughout all the pages
on your site. They are also used by search engine spiders to navigate
efficiently around your website. Is your Sitemap correct and up to
date? It should be updated every time content is added/modified on
your website.Double checking and correcting any issues with these
three structural elements will ensure that the search engine's spiders
have every advantage when crawling your website.That's just the
beginning. Some other points to consider to create a sound website
structure are;Try to avoid Javascript and Flash where possible
Often
flash and java give a website that extra special, eye catching
element, but unfortunately, search engine spiders can't see it. This
in turn means that your potential clients probably won't see it
either...Use interlinking between your pages
Search engine spiders
follow links to get from page to page, therefore internal linking
really helps them get around your website. When links to other pages
of your site are placed within the page content, this also shows the
spiders that all of your pages contain information that relates to the
other areas of your website. Your human visitors will also appreciate
the quick links to relative pages and easy navigation.Keywords within
URLs.
If possible, it is highly recommended to incorporate your main
keywords within your URL. This is excellent for SEO and is worth
looking at.Optimize Meta Data and Images.
Make sure all your meta tags
are complete and keyword optimized. Separate them with comma's. If you
can, keyword optimize image file names, alt tags and title tags. Every
little bit helps.Last, but not least, make sure your site
validates...
The w3c (World Wide Web Consortium) develops technical
specifications and guidelines to which the majority of websites and
search engines adhere to. Validating your site will bring to light any
problems within the structure of your site that go against the
guidelines. Complete adherence to the guidelines is not essential, but
it will improve your visibility within the search engines. Just Google
'w3c validator' to find it.Once you have built a solid website
structure, you can then focus your attention to the on page website
factors. Remember... never underestimate the factors that you cannot
see.