I received some feedback from a few designer-oriented folks over at the FreelanceSwitch forums, and would very much like to put something together that they can use. These guys and gals are designing sites all day for their clients, so they don’t have the time to do all the research and learning we do over in the SEO world.

I put this together as a way for those outside of the SEO trenches to reference during their site design and creation. I hope it builds as I get more questions, into a standard designers can use to make sites ascrawlable and crawler friendly as possible.

Please note, though, that the items involved will not necessarily gain fantastic rankings, as there is a reason it has taken me and my SEO brethren years to get this stuff to work. It gets a lot deeper and more involved to get sites to rank well, and drive quality traffic. Rather, this guide will help to prevent some pitfalls that designers may not even know they are employing.

It should also be noted that most SEO questions are usually answered with «well that depends on…» As such, these are some basic ideas to be mindful of, and understand that each site carries its own challanges and required areas in regard to SEO. 

If you have any questions about the information contained, please feel free to let me know, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

 
Navigation

• Make sure to opt for text link navigation as opposed to images.
• If you have to use images, make proper use of the alt attribute.
• In the alt attribute of navigation images, be clear and concise as opposed to stuffing it with keywords. If it’s the link to the used cars page, make the alt «used cars» as opposed to «used cars for sale in jacksonville florida cars for sale used.»

Title Tag

• Make sure the title tag for each page is unique and relevant to the page it is on.
• Try not to exceed 70 characters in the title tag.
• Don’t stuff the title with keywords in an attempt to rank. Instead, make it easy to read and relevant.
• The title is seen in the search engines’ results pages, so it should make sense as well as make use of relevant terms.

Good Title = «Freelance SEO services by Josh Garner»
Bad Title = «Freelance SEO, SEO Services, Freelance SEO Services, Josh Garner»   Yuck!

Description Tag

• Make the Description unique and relevant for each page.
• Try not to exceed 180 characters.
• Don’t stuff the description with keywords in an attempt to rank. Instead, make it easy to read and relevant.
• The Description is often used in the search engines’ results pages, so make it a good call to action with the necessary search terms as applicable.

Good Description = «Josh Garner provides Freelance SEO services to small and medium sized businesses.»
Bad Description = «Freelance SEO Services, SEO services, Freelance SEO by Josh Garner. Offering Search Engine Optimization and SEO services for freelance and such.»

Keywords Meta Tag

• Highly Debated.
• Most say it doesn’t help, I’ve seen proof otherwise. However, it is extremely low on the list of things that matter the most.
• Spend a few minutes here, nothing more.
• Use it as a means to store the search terms you are targeting for the pages of your site.
• Put 5 or 6 terms on each page.
• Don’t stuff with keywords to get more coverage, this is exactly why it isn’t weighed upon by the search engines anymore.

Good Keywords = «Freelance SEO Services, Search Engine Optimization Services, SEO Services, Small Business SEO»
Bad Keywords = «SEO, search engine optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Services, Services SEO, seo services, services seo, freelance SEO, freelance seo, Freelance SEO, Freelance seo»

Content

• Go for quality over quantity.
• Use the search terms as necessary.
• Don’t stuff search terms in the content in a fashion that would hamper the readability.
• Use of header tags (h1, h2, etc.) should be used for intended readability and as a title for the page/paragraph accordingly.
• Don’t stuff the header tags.
• H1 and h2 tags should be used at the top of the page accordingly, and lower header tags to introduce paragraphs.

Images

• Use the alt attribute appropriately.
• Don’t use the alt attribute as a means to stuff keywords.
• Describe the image.
• Image file names should also be descriptive.
• More on the alt attribute.