Web Design All-in-One for Dummies®

Chapter 3: Search Engine

Optimization and Site

Maintenance

In This Chapter

⻬ Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

⻬ Seeing the benefits of ethical SEO

⻬ Improving search engine rankings with HTML

⻬ Submitting a URL to search engines

⻬ Improving visibility and accessibility with a site map

⻬ Performing site maintenance

⻬ Keeping your site up to date

Y

our site is up and running — give yourself a giant pat on the back, take

a deep breath, and get ready to do a few more things to make the most

out of all your hard work. Although additional work is not an absolute

requirement, you can apply a handful of other useful techniques to

your site to make it even more search engine and visitor

friendly. As an added benefit, when you do the tasks out-

lined in this chapter, your design services will be more

valuable to your clients and can help you stand out

from the competition.

This chapter explains several Search Engine

Optimization (SEO) techniques that can help make

your site more search engine friendly. In addition,

you find out why every site should include an

HTML Site Map page and how to create one. As a

final note, the end of this chapter shows you how to

perform regular Web site maintenance and suggests

ways to help you keep your site content fresh and up

to date.

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Understanding Search Engine Optimization

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Understanding Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to any techniques applied to the

code and/or content of a Web page that assists with the indexing of a site by

search engines and the improvement of the site’s ranking order within them.

Because search engines often rely on computerized “bots” to crawl the Web

and develop and maintain their indexes, many of the SEO concepts can be

easily implemented by thinking strategically about the site’s content, title

tags, meta tags, page structure, and accessibility coding. When the site has

been “optimized” for search engines, the site’s URL can be submitted to

search engines, which itself can help visitors find the site and improve the

site’s ranking within the search engine results.

Depending on your (or your client’s) budget, you can do a range of things to

increase both Web traffic and conversion rates. Traffic refers to the number

of visitors to a site, while a conversion rate is the percentage of those Web

visitors who actually complete a valid sale or other online transaction.

If you have somewhat of a budget, spending money on pay-per-click adver-

tising can be very useful and profitable. Pay-per-click Internet advertising, or

paid placement, is a method of site promotion whereby the advertiser (you)

bids on the keywords or key phrases you think will be used by potential site

visitors and then pays a fee anytime a visitor clicks an advertising link that

leads back to the advertiser’s site. Google offers the perhaps the most well-

known pay-per-click service, Google AdWords, which displays your adver-

tised URLs along the top or right edge in the Sponsored Links areas of the

Google Search Results pages, like the example shown in Figure 3-1.

Additionally, if you are selling any products or services, conversion rates

have been known to increase when a site does everything it can to easily

facilitate a sale, such as having clearly labeled Add XXX Product to Cart but-

tons, making the checkout process easy to use, making clearly defined ship-

ping and return policies available to visitors, and offering excellent

customer service and sales support.

On the other hand, if you have no money set aside for marketing, it would

be really smart for you to take a little time to make the site more search

engine friendly. The more you know about SEO, the more valuable your

services can be to your Web clients, whom often will want to rely on your

knowledge and expertise to guide them through (or completely handle

for them) the process of getting their site listed on search engines and

attracting more visitors.

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