Optimizing for Search Engines

Search engines are very friendly!

The vast majority of Internet users find new web sites by using a search engine.
A position within the top 20 listings of a major search engine tremendously increases traffic to a web site.
Search engine placement can be a low-cost process in marketing your web sites.
Search engines help people find relevant information on the Internet.
Major search engines maintain huge databases of web sites that users can search by typing in some text.

Do's:

<title>

HTML <title> is the most important part of your page,
<title> should appeal to search engines and people,
<title> needs to interest the reader,
<title> should appear right after the <head> tag,
Don't repeat the same keyword in your <title> more than twice; it's considered spam.

Keywords in page text

Choosing appropriate keywords is extremely important; keywords are what lead search engine users to your site. Use alt tags to describe images when images serve functionality i.e. when an image is used as a hyperlink. Keywords can be included in these alt descriptions to pull a higher weight factor for your pages. It's also accessibility friendly. If an image serves only as decoration only, no value for alt tags is preferred.

include at least 100 words in page text,
use keywords at the beginning of the page,
place keywords close to each other (proximity),
repeat keywords 3-7 times for every 100 words.

Meta-description

The meta description tag describes your site's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords.

Some engines or bots use it as a site's summary on their results pages. Google refers to this content like this as snippets. If they do, the reader may actually see this hidden tag. Make sure its contents are enticing to the reader.

use meta description tag on all pages,
limit it to 150 characters,
include keywords (near the beginning of the summary),
don't repeat keywords more than 7 times.

Meta-keywords

List your keywords in order of importance. Include all your most important keywords. It's recommended that you repeat the same keyword 3-7 times, but not in a row.

use it to list keywords,
limit it to 1024 characters,
list keywords in order of importance,
don't repeat the same keyword more than 7 times.

Comment tags

Comment tags are another great way to add keywords to your site. ()

should be placed on every single page,
can be used to boost keyword counts,
shouldn't include more than seven repetitions of a keyword.

URL name

The URL name is the part of the URL that exists within the site's or page's Internet address.

URL Keywords:

name files with keywords,
consider alphabetical hierarchy,
relies on a hierarchy including special characters and numbers as well as letters,
is used by directories and small search engines,
should be considered when naming files, creating a title or buying a URL,
look for a URL name containing keywords.

Don'ts:

Search Engine spam

Don't use:

Meta refresh tags,
invisible text (background and text are same color),
irrelevant keywords in the title and meta tags,
excessive repetition of keywords,
overuse of mirror sites (same sites that point to different URLS),
submitting too many pages in one day,
identical or nearly identical pages (dynamic sites are prone to this),
submitting to an inappropriate category,
link farms.

HTML Frames

present problems for search engines and people,
should be avoided when possible,
must be supplemented by text in the <noframes> tag,
are ideally accompanied by workaround pages.

Files that search engines don't use

Text in graphics. Use ALT tags if the graphic serves a function; i.e. hyperlinked to another page or site.

Pages that require registration, cookies, or passwords.

XML,
Java applets,
Dynamic content (URLs with "?" in them), except Google, FAST and Inktomi,
Multimedia files (Flash, Shockwave, streaming video),
Don't use spam or frames,
Create workaround pages for dynamic and framed sites.