Ztoadesign

Optimization

Search Engine Optimization Importance of Clean HTML Code

Web site optimization is the process of specifically designing your web pages to rank high in the Search Engines. If you're serious about your business, optimizing your web pages is a must.

Although many Search Engines are no longer using Meta tags to assist them in ranking a web page, some still do, and it's worth the effort to include them.
A factor that many overlook, but that is just as important as keyword research and application, search engine submission, or link popularity, is the size, appearance, and cleanliness of your HTML coding. The size, cleanliness, and appearance and presentation to the search engine robots and spiders can be the difference between ranking in the top ten or in the 1000's.

Size of HTML Coding and Page

When designing your web page, you must specifically design it to rank high in the Search Engines. This involves much more than just including META tags. Your Keywords, Title, Image Alt text, Text and overall design, all play an important role in determining how your website will rank.

If your site doesn't rank in the top 10 or 20 results when doing a keyword search at the Search Engines, your target audience won't be able to find you.

A significant amount of website traffic originates from the major Search Engines. Most Internet users will go to a Search Engine, type in a keyword phrase and look through the top 10 - 20 results. Most of the time, they'll find what they're looking for in the first 10 results. The percentage of "click throughs" or purchases is even smaller. Listing near the top and grabbing the attention of your target audience is the top priority.

There are many components of your web page that you should pay close attention to when preparing it for listing in a Search Engine.

The first step towards improving your listing is selecting keyword phrases that best reflect your web page.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases

A keyword is a word that best describes your web page. For example, if your web page is focusing on dogs, your best keyword will be "dogs."

A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your web page. If your web page is focusing on grooming a dog, then your best keyword phrase will be "dog grooming."

When preparing your web pages, you should concentrate on just a couple of keyword phrases (for each page) used in different variations. Avoid using general one-word keywords, as you definitely won't rank high in the Search Engines. For example, if your website focuses on "dog grooming" you wouldn't want to use the word "dog" as one of your keywords. Why? Because it's too general. Instead, you may want to use a keyword phrase such as "dog grooming tips" or "how to groom dogs".

You have to put yourself in your potential visitors' shoes and imagine what words they will type into a Search Engine to find your site.

Selecting the BEST keyword phrases is the MOST important step towards optimizing your pages for the Search Engines.

Another great way to use keyword phrases is to use very unique words. For example, if you're selling computers, instead of using the word computers as a Keyword, use the specific brand name or model of the computer. This will drive highly targeted visitors to your website.
Every search engine prefers a different amount of text on the page, a different overall page size, and of course, a different keyword density ratio. Google, for example, likes small page sizes, with the size ranging.
When the search engines come to your web page, they have a number of things that they are going to be looking for, and a number of things that they don't want to find on the page.

Some of the criteria that the search engine robots look for are:

Related text

Keyword rich text

Links and Link titles

A keyword density percentage

Large text sizes

Title tags

Alt tags

H1 Tags

Frames tag if using Frames

Some of the things that the search engine robots do not want to find on your page are:

To little text

Keyword Stuffing

Heavy Java Script

Large File Sizes

Small Text Sizes

Frames

Each search engine puts a different amount of weight on each of these criteria, but general rules apply across the board.

When the search engine robots visit your web page , and site for that matter, they will want to see certain things at the top of your HTML code. This is what we mean by the appearance of your HTML code: the things that the search engines look for in ranking a web site should be as close to the top as possible. This is not the rule that applies to all search engines, as a few of them do prefer to see text and links near the bottom of the page as well.

Validating your HTML coding is something that not only touches upon optimization issues, but usability and browser rendering. Using an HTML validator, like CSE Validator Pro, will allow you to clean up your HTML code to remove all unneeded tags, add the tags that you do need, check your spelling, and eliminate code errors that will result in browsers rendering your pages wrong. Having your HTML in the correct format, with all the correct tags in place, is something that search engines look for, and can help your optimization efforts as well.