There are some basic rules that you need to follow if you want to create web pages that are search engine friendly. You will need to keep these in mind when you are designing your website. If you are having a web designer do the work for you then you can pass these details on.
What about Frames?
Frames are a big no go area. Most spiders are not able to handle frames. If you do have to use them, which you shouldn’t, you will also have to create a NO FRAMES version of your website if you want spiders to crawl it.
Can I Use Flash, QuickTime, Plug-Ins etc?
Search engines are able to read and index flash websites so this is good. You shouldn’t however design your whole website in flash because it will be too hard to implement SEO techniques properly and if any issues arise, they will be very hard to resolve. A small amount of flash is fine as are small amounts of movies and other plugins. Remember flash, movies, audio, etc., are used for your human visitors and not the spiders anyway.
What about JavaScript?
If you use JavaScript on your website then you should know that it is invisible to some of the search engines as they can’t read it.
Are Image Maps Useful?
Image maps may seem like a great idea when designing your website but it is worth noting that not all the search engines follow them. Another downside to image maps is that you can’t include anchor text so I would advice using an alternative navigational design.
Do I Need To Validate My HTML?
Validating your HTML is a great way to check for errors in your code. There are a lot of times when you will get insignificant errors but on occasions you may find that you have forgotten to close tags or something else that will cause problems when spiders are indexing your website. The rule goes that you should always check you HTML and fix and errors you get.
