There are many companies in the market that build sites. What should one request of the site building companies so that your site will be “search engines friendly”?
General remarks – site building For a new domain it is advisable to upload the site or at least one page from the site as soon as possible (even during the construction) and connect some quality links to it. This is done so the domain will be scanned by Google and gain seniority (the seniority of a site has a big influence when optimizing a site). To check if the domain is scanned by Google write: site:www.mydomain.com in the Google search window.
Choosing a site storage server It is very important to choose the right server to store your site. The server company can have an influence on the time it takes the site to get indexed, and in extreme cases may not get indexed at all. A storage company that has many breakdowns could also harm the site and its position. The storage company has importance, not only S.E.O related – a site that takes time to upload causes the surfer to lose interest. Remember! Cheap storage could be expensive. Crashing and slow reaction time will cause, in the long run a loss that exceeds the apparent savings. It is important to store your site with a serous company (not free) that stores serous sites and not sex or gambling sites. The availability of the site should aspire to 100% and the unavailability of the site should turn on a red light. It is worthwhile checking sites that are stored at that company at different times of the day or install a tool that monitors the availability of the storage. Many site-building companies also offer a site storage service. Ask the site-building company where the site is stored.
Site building – buying a domain It is recommended that the domain name be linked to the company, will be short and to the point and will contain minimum characters. It is advisable to buy the domain with a selection of endings like co.il, com, org, etc, this is to preserve the name in the future. If in the future you intend to turn to audiences in different areas of the world it is advisable to buy the local domain of that country. There is no need to build a special site for every domain but have a permanent referral with the 301 redirect code, from the different domains to the main site. This referral is accepted by the search engines. Anyone may purchase a domain. There is no need to ask the site building company to buy the domain for you and pay them commission.
Site building – domain referral If the new site is replacing an old one, or changing its address or changing part of the URL, the old addresses should not be erased. A permanent direct should be performed with a 301 redirect code from the old address to the new. This redirection transfers all the qualities of the old page (links, PR etc) to the new pages. This is the only redirect that is acceptable to the search engines and no other redirect should be done. Any other referral (including a temporary redirect with the 302 code) will present the search engines with duplication of the site pages. A tool for checking the domain redirects can be found in this link: http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/redirect-check . If a domain is transferred, it is advisable to consult with a S.E.O company and not leave it to a site-building company.
Site building using sophisticated technologies - Do not use sophisticated technologies – Sites are indexed into the search engines by robots that scan them. These robots are relatively simple. Most of them can read text and jump from page to page according to the labels (<a href>) on the site. Their method is to go through the site pages and save the literal contents to a data base. When they encounter a technology like flash and similar techniques, they have problems reading the file and move on. Therefore, if the site is flash based, or if the link labels are JavaScript, there is a strong possibility that, except for the main page of the site, most of the robots won’t go to the other pages of the site. A page that is indexed well by the search engines is a page with a lot of text and a simple structure.
- If a dynamic technology is used it is important to back it up with a site map and simple HTML links at the bottom of the page.
- It is not recommended to use a site building company that specializes in flash technology.
Possibilities of the managing interface (Back-end) – basic requirements from the site building company - The possibility to change pages and content or add new pages by the site owner should not be dependent on the storage company.
- Using META tags – There should be easy access to changing these tags on every page separately: title, description and keywords. One should make sure that every page in the site has unique description and title tags and that the keywords tags have words and phrases that are in the page contents as well. You should not put words and phrases into the keywords tags if they do not appear in the content of the site. Many site building companies claim that the sites that they build are suitable for search engines because META tags can be added. Beware of companies like that; Meta tags are only one of many parameters.
- It is important to make sure that there is easy and convenient access to add ALT tags to every image on the site. Every image on the site has to have a description. Search engines cannot see pictures – ALT tags are their way of understanding the connection of the picture. The site building company must be asked for the option of adding ALT tags to a picture through the managing interface.
- Use the robot.txt file on your network server. This file informs the search engine robots which directory it can scan and which not to scan. Make sure the file is updated and is compatible with your site, so you don’t accidentally get blocked by the Google robot. Go to http://www.robotstxt.org to learn how to direct the search engine robots when they get to your site.
Note: Blocking the search engine access to a specific page will indeed prevent collecting the contents of the page. Sometimes, if there are links to that page in other pages, that search engines can enter, then the page will appear in the search results, but without the information about it (title, description etc). If you want to completely eliminate the appearance of the page, you must use the tag method (nofollow , noindex) and it is advisable to allow their addition to the managing interface.
- The option to add H1/H2 titles – H1/H2 titles are important for the search engines and is recommended to put the keywords and phrases into these titles. The managing interface should have the option to define sentences on the page as those titles.
- Access to the site’s storage and FTP servers to upload the site map and files. The site map is a distribution of the site’s link structure that helps search engines to scan the site. A simple HTML site map is necessary when the links from the home page are not visible to the search engines (JAVA links or other dynamic links) and when the home page is designed with Flash. Search engines cannot read flash presentations and therefore can not scan the whole site. When they encounter a Flash page they will look for simple links that exit the page, with help from the site map the search engines can scan the site properly. Besides the HTML site map it is also advisable to have a XML site map (nowadays one can find interfaces that create and update this site map automatically and you should demand this from your site building company), and update it on the Google webmaster tools periodically and after every major change to the site.
URL address - If you are using dynamic pages (like URL with a “?”) it is important to know that not all the search engine robots find these dynamic pages as well as they find the static pages. Keeping a small amount of parameters and short parameters can help.
- Decrease the amount of times you use "&id=" as a parameter in the URL, because Google prefers less pages of this kind.
- For sites in Hebrew it is recommended to add the option of a Hebrew URL address. For example the address of this site includes the words “site building” in Hebrew.
Technical instructions – site building - Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most of the search engines will see your site as it appears on Lynx. If programs like JavaScript, cookies, frames or Flash prevent you from seeing your whole site with the browser, then the chances are high that the search engine robots will have a problem in scanning the pages of your site.
- Allow the search engine robots to scan your site without a session id or other arguments following their track through your site. These techniques are useful when tracking behavior of visitors to your site, but the approach pattern of the search engine robots is completely different. Using these techniques can get only part of the site indexed, because search engines can not always distinguish between URL that look different, but actually point to the same page.
Managing the site storage company - You have to confirm with the site storage company what databases belong to the site owner according to the agreement.
- You have to confirm with the site storage company what the days and times of the technical support, and also the type of support that you are entitled to at no added cost. This support is most important in the initial stages of the site.
- You have to confirm with the site storage company the way the site, contents and database are backed up. This is so you don’t need file recovery or information recovery services.
Intactness of site code – a basic requirement from any site building company - Intact code according to w3c standards. “Clean” writing. Running the intact code checking has to be perfect, that means 0 code mistakes. Require a clean and correct code.
- Verify your site supports all major web browsers (internet explorer with its various versions, firefox etc.)
The depth of the site and an intact internal link structure • Restricting the depth of the site – in a few mouse-clicks the user can get from the main page to the last page of the site. When fewer clicks are required the page is more important to the search engines. If the site has a lot of depth, it is customary to add a site map so that internal pages are also accessible by fewer clicks, and that way they will be significant to the search engines. A classic site-tree that is accepted by the search engines is one in which all the site pages are 1-3 clicks from the main page. It is advisable to give thought to the internal link structure when building the site.
Links - All links should be obvious and visible.
- Regular links without Java links according to < a href> tags.
- Any dynamic link (Flash, Java etc) should be backed up with a similar, simple HTML link at the bottom of the page.
- Every link should have a phrase or word that is promoted (anchor text). Links in which the anchor text is the address or the words “click here” – are less efficient in site optimization.
- A logical number of links in a page (less then 100).
- An option to add the rel=nofollow tag to links.
Contents of the site - Contents of the site should be specific to the key word. It is advisable to do an in depth word search to understand what are the most profitable key words (phrases with big search volume and relatively low competition, focused enough to bring high quality surfers). It is important to incorporate as many key words as possible in the site pages.
- It is recommended that a page in the site contains about 300-500 words, and that the key words and phrases will be about 3%-7% of the contents of the site (usually about 5%)
Site promotion – elements to avoid using - Using frames (a page in another page) and creating pages based only on Flash.
- Duplicating pages (using the same content in several pages). Don’t duplicate the different tags on a page particularly not the title and description tags.
- Neutralizing elements of the browser (especially neutralizing the browsers back button).
- Cloaking – That means presenting one site for the search engine robots and another for the surfers. This is a deliberate deception of the search engine. There are some ethical reasons to create cloaking and that is when using flash sites. But most of the times the object is not ethical and search engines don’t treat it mercifully.
- Creating a doorway page – a page with one clear purpose: getting a higher rating on the search engines and directing the traffic to the homepage. The page is full of key words but there is no real meaning for the surfer because he is directed automatically to another page. The only direction accepted by the search engine is a permanent redirection with a 301 code.
- Misleading redirections – redirecting the surfer to another site against his will or request.
- Hidden and concealed text – usually text that is the color of the background it exists but can’t be seen, or a very small font that can’t be read. Search engines identify these methods and other methods to conceal text and penalize sites that use these methods.
- Keyword struffing - inserting an excessive amount of keywords that do not connect to the sites contents. The existence of keywords in a site is of basic importance, but when it is done in an excessive and extreme way the search engines regard it as spam.
- Stuffing keywords into Meta tags – there is no need to insert keywords into Meta tags more then once, when a word exists more then once search engines will see it as spam. It is also advisable not to insert keywords into the tags that do not exist on the specific page.
- Links to gambling sites, adult only sites, link farms, and spam sites – a link directing to a problematic site will significantly hurt the site’s rating.
When you approach a site building company, it is important to know what to request so the site is search engine compatible.We supply professional consulting services during the site building process, so that your site suits the search engines optimally, you are invited to contact us.
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