Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Building an SEO-Friendly Site

In This Chapter

• Designing your Web site to be SEO-friendly

• Creating a style that attracts your targeted audience

• Planning your site navigation

• Implementing a search within your Web site

• Incorporating interactive media to enhance your search engine rankings

• Creating pages that convert

In this chapter, you find out how to design Web sites with search engine marketing in mind. For many sites, search engine ranking is viewed as a part of the launch, but not as a part of the design. If you are fortunate enough to be newly building your Web site, you can construct it with search engine friendliness from the ground up. It's more likely, however, that your site already resides on the Web. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a new phase of your site's development, but it's better late than never. This chapter contains many rules of thumb that can help you design — or retrofit — a site to be SEO friendly.

Preplanning and Organizing your Site

As we covered in the last chapter, you should start your SEO planning by inventorying your assets. What do you have that can possibly enhance your Web site? List all of your potential assets, not just those that are already online. Be creative and very open-minded at this point. Take stock of all of the following:

• Written materials you or your company has produced — brochures, catalogs, articles, user manuals, tutorials, online help, customer correspondence, and so on.

• Videos of interviews, television spots, commercials, ...