If you want search engines like Google to properly index and list your site you need to make sure that it is search engine friendly. Here are some things you can do to make your site or blog a lot more search engine friendly.
- Add Text To Your Images
Search engines can only read text. If you put an image on your site without a text description they will basically just ignore it when indexing your site. This is why you should always describe your images using text. You can do this either using your site builder’s interface (WordPress, for instance makes this very easy to do), or you can do it by editing your site’s HTML code directly and adding “alt” description to your image tags like this:
<img src=”yourimage.png” alt=”Image description” >
- Make Sure Your Site’s Code Is Correct
All websites are constructed out of HTML code, no matter if you write them by hand or use a WYSIWYG editor. If the code contains errors search engines may not be able to read some parts of your site and will not be able to index them properly. This is why it may be a good idea to use and HTML validator like the one at http://validator.w3.org/. It will tell you if your web pages contain any significant errors that may make them unreadable for search engine spiders.
- Add Relevant Title and Description Tags To Your Pages
In order to help search engines understand what your pages are about, you should add a title and description to your pages that clearly describes what they are about. Most WYSIWYG editors allow you to do this when you create a new page. If you use WordPress you can use a plugin to help you do this. If you know HTML, you can just include the proper <title> and <meta description> tags.
- Make Sure That All Your Pages Are Accessible
You should make sure that all of your pages are properly linked together using regular HTML links. A good way to do this is by including a site map on your site. This is a regular web page that contains links to all of your pages.
In the past it was pretty easy to trick search engines and manipulate your sites ranking by doing things like adding hidden keywords to your pages, stuffing your content with keywords, etc. However, nowadays search engines are a lot smarter and these tactics no longer work. In fact, they will only hurt your rankings and may even get you banned. Some people still use what are known as “Black Hat” search engine optimization strategies, but these are very risky and should be avoided if you don’t want to get your site penalized by the search engines.
