Search Engine Friendly Web Page Template
I want to give you a free web page template that will be search engine friendly. Why?
Well, I assume you want your web page to come up as high as
possible in search engines because that generates free
traffic.
On the other hand, your page has to deliver value to your
visitors. Most people on the web are not searching to buy
something. They're surfing the web to find information to
solve a problem or fill their needs. If your page delivers
that, they'll be back.
Fortunately that is exactly what search engines want you to
do.
Their job is to present the best web pages possible to any
search action. How do they do that?
Well, to be honest: I don't know! The only people who do
know are the developers of search engine software. And there
are a lot of experts on the web who try to find out how they
do it. But that's a full time job and I don't have time for
that.
The only thing I know is that search engines can't see what
we see on a web page. Just go to any page and click 'View
Source' in the menu of your browser. That's how they see a
page. They spider it, analyze it and perform some
arithmetics with it, way beyond my comprehension.
But they can't read images or graphics or flash and they
(still) have a lot of troubles with Javascript, dynamic
generated pages, fancy menus and frames.
Their software only does exactly what it is programmed to
do. With millions and millions of pages on the web, they
can't solve every possible situation. It's just a general
approach.
So, if you make it easy for the engine software to spider
and interpret your web pages, there's a big chance you come
up high in their rankings. At least you have a big
advantage. That's why I always use a simple HTML-editor. It does
exactly what I put into my pages and it doesn't include
extra coding. Right now I'm using AceHTML Freeware, but I
also like Arachnophilia a lot.
If the above is true, and I think it is, then your pages
have to be as simple as possible. It should be a clean
mixture between text and HTML tags, with lots of text and as
few tags as possible.
Still, you have to include some techniques to satisfy the
search engine software. There are a few point you have to
keep in mind:
1. the name of a web page should always be the main keyword
of that page; don't mix keywords; instead write seperate
pages for each keyword and link them;
2. always include the main keyword in the Title-tag; keep
the Title limited to 7 or 8 words;
3. always include the Description and Keyword tags and use
your main keyword here; although these tags are less and
less important at the time of writing this article, you'll
never know if that's going to change in future;
4. always use one H tag and include your main keyword in it;
5. always use one IMG tag and include your keyword in the
ALT variable;
6. put your navigation and menu on the right side, so your
text is investigated first;
7. try to use your main keyword in an anchor (A) text; I use
a link at the bottom of every page to the top;
8. use your main keyword at the very beginning and at the
end of your text; include some variatons like plurals; don't
overdue this! An excellent way to test if your web page is well designed
is to use a free software program that analyzes your page.
You can find this little gem at (http://www.analog.com/)
These are the main elements to create a good web page.
If you click the link below you will see a page that
contains this article and some extra comments. You can save
that page (in the menu of your browser click 'Save As' and
save it on your hard disk. Use the page as a template. Of
course you have to include your own graphics, but don't
overdo that.
Click to save the free web page template.
Also read about The Global Concept of Web Development and
Search Engine Positioning Secrets in my articles section at
(http://www.anownsite.com/articles/).
How to Easily Create a Search-Engine Friendly Navigation Menu For Your Website
A navigation menu is an important element of a website.
A good navigation menu helps your visitors navigate through your website efficiently - in as few mouse-clicks as possible.
You can think of a website navigation menu like the "Table of Contents" of a book.
And the greater the number of web pages on your website, the more important the role of a website navigation menu.
Another important benefit of a navigation menu is it optimizes the internal linking structure of your website and allows the navigation menu links to rank better in search engines, since all web pages will be pointing to it.
(For example, if your website has 1000 web pages, each navigation menu link will have 1000 web pages pointing to it. This will result in the navigation menu links ranking higher than the other web pages)
Here's how you can use this knowledge to improve the search-engine rankings of selected web pages - Simply include the selected web pages as links in the navigation menu and you'll automatically have the rest of the web pages pointing to them.
And finally, here's one method you can use to easily create a website navigation menu - Using Server Side Includes (SSI).
What are Server Side Includes?
------------------------------
Server Side Includes (SSI) are simply instructions (also known as "directives") that are included in a HTML document to execute a specific command e.g. inserting the content of an HTML file.
The SSI directives are "processed" at the Server side, before it reaches the requesting browser (hence the name Server Side Includes).
As a result, the "processed" SSI directives merge seamlessly with the HTML file.
Here's an example of SSI in action at a website (i.e. the left navigation menu):
(http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com).
Notice the left navigation menu is made up of static HTML links.
This is to allow search-engine spiders to crawl through the website to discover other web pages (via the navigation menu links).
An alternative solution to get your web pages spidered by search-engines is to use a sitemap.
A sitemap is simply a webpage that contains links to every webpage on your website and should be linked from your home page.
This will provide the search-engine spiders a path to follow and will ultimately result in your web pages getting fully indexed.
You can learn more about sitemaps here:
(http://SiteMapSoftware.com)
Note that most, but not all servers have SSI's enabled. Please check with your web host to find out whether SSI is enabled in your server.
How to Easily Create a Navigation Menu Using SSI?
-------------------------------------------------
Step 1# - Create a HTML navigation menu file
This is the navigation menu file that will be inserted into your HTML pages and is also your HTML navigation menu template.
A simple horizontal text HTML navigation menu can look like this:
Home | Products | Pricing | About Us | Contact Us
(You'll need to hyperlink each of the above text to make these navigation links clickable by using your favorite HTML editor e.g. FrontPage or Dreamweaver)
You need to save this file with a .shtml extension once this file has been created e.g. topnavi.shtml
Step 2# - Insert navigation menu file into HTML file
Open up the HTML file (e.g. products.html) and place the cursor on the location where you wish to insert the navigation menu.
Click here to view the SSI directive:
(http://BizSuccessOnline.com/SSI_CodeSnippet)
And copy and paste the above SSI directive at the cursor.
(Be sure to replace "your_navigation_filename.shtml" with the name of your navigation menu file)
Note: You CANNOT use absolute path with an SSI directive:
e.g. do not use (http://yourdomain.com/topnavi.shtml)
And finally, save the HTML file with a .shtml extension e.g. products.shtml
Step 3# - Upload files onto your server
The last step is to upload the newly created .shtml files onto your web server and check to make sure the pages display properly.
And if you view the HTML source code of your HTML file on a live internet connection, you'll notice that the SSI directive would have been replaced by the actual HTML navigation menu code.
Maintaining your navigation menu is now a simple matter of changing the contents on the navigation file.
The Great Fixed Vs Relative Table Width Debate
Visit any web design newsgroups or any of the web authoring guides on the web and you will probably encounter a large number of people proclaiming the evils of having a fixed table width and recommending that you use relative table widths for your tables. On the other hand, if you view the source HTML for the websites you visit, you will find that a large number of them use fixed table widths. Which should you use? As we will find out in this article, the issue is not as straightforward as the proponents of relative table widths make out.
For the uninitiated, a fixed table width is one where the width of the table is specified in pixels. For example, the following HTML snippet will most likely produce a table that is 597 pixels wide:
I say most likely because other factors may cause the browser to display the table at a different width, such as if you were to put an image in the table that is wider what you specify here.
A relative table width is specified as a percentage of the width of the visitor's viewing window. Hence the following snippet will most likely produce a table that occupies 80 percent of the screen:
1. The Case For Relative Table Widths
The arguments raised in favour of giving your tables a relative width usually revolve around the fact that such table widths yield pages that work regardless of the visitor's screen resolution.
For example, a table width of "100%" will always span the entire width of the browser window whether the visitor has a 640x468 display or a 1024x768 display (etc). Your visitor never needs to scroll horizontally to read your page, something that is regarded by most people as being very annoying.
With relative table widths, you need not worry whether to code for a restrictive 640x468 display, often regarded as the lowest common denominator (although it is not), or for the more reasonable 800x600 display.
2. The Case For Fixed Table Widths
At the time of this writing, the pages on Affiliated-Business.com were constructed with relative widths. They probably look fine if you were using a 800x600 display. If however, you have a wider display, try viewing it with your browser window expanded to its maximum width (ie, "maximize" it, in Windows lingo).
Did you notice that a number of the paragraphs that used to occupy a decent few lines are now displayed as single lines? The article now looks like an elementary school essay - with single lined paragraphs and lots of space in between.
Essentially, when you use relative table widths, you have less control over the appearance of your page. It will appear as wide or as narrow as your visitor's browser. As a result, when the browser window gets too wide, everything will appear stretched out. When the browser window gets too narrow, your text and graphics in the various columns will suddenly be misaligned.
If you were to create a fixed width table, that table will retain its proportion regardless of the visitor's screen resolution. Of course if the resolution drops below the fixed width you assigned, the visitor would have to scroll horizontally. But at least your page still appears as you planned.
3. The Rock and The Hard Place
With all the foregoing, which should you use? As long as screen resolutions continue to be as varied as it is now, and as long as the HTML standards do not allow web authors to specify things like "if resolution falls below 640 pixels, use a fixed width of 640, else use a relative width of 80% (etc)", no single solution is going to satisfy everyone.
Generally speaking, if you want tighter control over the appearance of your pages, fixed table widths might be the route you have to take, although of course it may cause grief for people with lower resolutions than what you designed for. You should probably test your page under a 640x480 resolution to check if the problems visitors have with that screen resolution are tolerable.
If you do not need such a tight control, you might prefer to go with the advice of the majority of web design guides and use relative widths for your site. You still need to test your page under a 640x480 resolution to see if your layout and alignment goes haywire under a lower resolution.
Incidentally, using fixed widths does not mean that your page will look fine under higher resolutions. If your table has a fixed width of say 600 pixels, and a visitor using a 1024x768 resolution system views that page, he'll see an undistorted copy of your table in a sea of white space.
Designing for different resolutions can sometimes seem like you are standing between a rock and a hard place. Don't believe the people who say that the use of one method over the other will solve all your problems. You still have to test your pages under a reasonably high resolution and a low resolution to see how it appears. In most cases, you will have to live with some imperfections when your site is viewed under extreme settings.
And of course when they invent the 2000x1000 displays...
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