Chapter 2. Creating an SEO Website
Most of your role in search engine optimization (SEO) deals with how you write the HTML code for your website. To optimize your website for search engines, you’ll need to have a few handy tricks up your sleeve. This chapter is practice for you to begin writing HTML code that’s optimized for search engines. In addition, you’ll learn how to communicate directly to search engine spiders by creating a sitemap and a robots.txt file.
Search Engines and HTML Code
The most important factor for determining your page rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs) is based on your HTML code. Let me say that again: your HTML code is the most important factor in your page’s rank, credibility, and potential to be searchable. With the right HTML code, your rank will soar. Following are examples of HTML code that can impact where your page ranks in the SERPs.
Page Titles
As far as HTML is concerned, the most important factor in SEO is the title of your page. The page title is the heading at the top of the browser window when people view a page, and it’s defined by the title element, or title tag, in the HTML of a page.
You probably don’t spend much time staring at the top of your browser window, so how could a page’s title matter so much? Page titles are crucial in SEO because they’re the biggest text in the SERPs. Figure 2-1 shows the SERP for the keyword query science. Notice the text “Science for Kids” and all the large, blue, underlined links on the SERP. Those ...
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