As it's the start of a very Happy New Year, (I'm a natural optimist at heart or maybe it's the intravenous Brandy drip still filtering through my system!) I thought I'd share some of our techniques for optimising a website structure and web page layouts for search engine ranking success!

Site Structure Checklist

+ Optimize your Site Home Page – REMOVE extensive graphics, flash, video components and splash pages 
+ Create a site map Web page / Link site map on all Web pages
+ Minimize directory depth / Remove extraneous directories
+ Remove session variables from dynamically created Web pages
+ Place keywords in your URLs, directory and file names
+ Choose a navigation scheme that allows search engine crawlers to index your site
+ Create multiple sub-domains for the different types of products or services you offer

Individual Web Page Layout Checklist

+ Optimize Title Tags - for both the Search Engines and client interest
+ Use keywords and phrases in the Body text
+ Where appropriate, place keywords in heading text and in all relevant links
+ Use ALT text for all images, including any logo or header images
+ Place any JavaScript or CSS Style Sheets in external files
+ Add a different, descriptive and relevant Meta Description for all pages
+ Add a different, descriptive but relevant Meta Keywords for all pages ( ignored by Google)
+ Link to a site map page from every page
+ Place a consistent statement in the footer of each Web page which includes your most important keywords
+ Use A HREF text Links for any site Navigation 

For a fuller explanation of setting up your website and individual pages please visit:

http://www.e-prominence.co.uk/knowledge-base/search-engine-optimization-articles/article-18.htm and 

http://www.e-prominence.co.uk/knowledge-base/search-engine-optimization-articles/article-19.htm

Hope this is of help to any budding web designers or e-commerce managers looking to redevelop a website.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Andrew Allfrey
www.e-prominence.co.uk

Hi, does anyone know if screen optimisation makes any difference?

If I optimise a new site for 1024 x 768 instead of 800 x 600 will this have an adverse effect on accessibility and then a knock-on adverse effect on search engine attractiveness?

Thanks, Dashford.

When designing any website you need to consider the types of devices that people could be viewing your site with. For example both PDA's and smart phones have internet capabilities and are becomming increasingly popular. 

Building an accessible website is not only a legal requirement but it also makes good business practice. The more people that can actually use your site, irrespective of what disability, screen resolution and device they have, the better! 

I'd therefore avoid designing a site for a particular screen resolution and concentrate on a more fluid design structure using CSS for both formatting and positioing the different page elements. Ideally you need to incorporate a variety of different style sheets to ensure maximum usability and accessibility.

Hope thats of help!

Andrew Allfrey
www.e-prominence.co.uk

On 18:03:32 13 January 2006 Loz wrote:

I don't think screen resolution has any effect at all, but can't say for sure. No one can.

It's bad practice designing a site for a resolution higher than 800 x 600 given that there are still considerable numbers of people using 800 x 600 - that's 15% for us.

On 08:15:28 14 January 2006 AndrewAllfrey wrote:

"When designing any website you need to consider the types of devices that people could be viewing your site with. For example both PDA's and smart phones have internet capabilities and are becomming increasingly popular." 

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Good point Andrew and you’re absolutely right!

The W3C is soon to publish a 'last call' version of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) Best Practices document. The purpose of the document is to set out a series of recommendations designed to promote more effective delivery of Web content to mobile devices.

To prove Andrew’s point, we (I’m on the Steering Council) used the web accessibility guidelines as a foundation to start with. We removed what we didn’t think was necessary and added what we felt was mobile specific – to over simplify it. I’m proud to say that my esteemed colleague Jo Rabin from .mobi and I, were responsible for redrafting Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision of the ‘One Web’ in the context of ‘web on the move’, for the team to review/revise.

Segala, Google and ICRA are co-editors of the mobileOK document. This will provide the actual conformance criterion. It will also be the specification for the Trustmark which will come in the form of a content label and visual logo.

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Do you want to get involved? You can contribute and help shape the future of the mobile web! 

The Best Practices Document
Blog about the MWI – I can’t seem to get around to adding a post!
Add yourself to the public mailing list

Cheers
Paul
Segala