There are two kinds of websites – Internal and External.
An Internal website is meant to be viewed by your associates, family, or perhaps only you.
It's in all your Favorites and Bookmarks.
An External website is meant to be found; by customers, kindred spirits, or enthusiasts.
You hope they add it to their Favorites.
This article describes External websites.
External websites include most attributes of Internal websites and many other considerations.
Chief among them, an External website must be found.
Your website must be recognized and indexed by internet search engines to reach the greatest potential.
Your success with search engines depends on website content and presentation.
Content
Your first web page can include a short description, offer to provide a service, and contact information.
Little more than a business card.
Then develop your identity as you refine your market, your strengths and benefits, a few key words and phrases, and important relationships.
Develop rich content and organize your message over several web pages; eg ‘about us’ or ‘services’ or ‘contacts’.
It’s an advantage, the words on each page are indexed by search engines, increasing your likelihood of being targeted.
Presentation
Presentation welcomes your visitor in.
Photographs, movement, sound, and graphics build interest.
Barriers are removed.
Information is presented the way your eye scans a page and behind the scenes in the order search engines find it.
Important features stand out.
Navigation between pages is clear.
Images are described for sight impaired visitors and search engines.
Search Engines
When you look at someone’s website you see some of the content in one of it’s presentations.
Search engines go deeper, they crawl through HTML, the instructions a website sends your browser to display the web page.
They see all the text and direction for every presentation.
For instance, text that displays when you move your mouse over images,
or buttons available if you change the settings on your browser,
and especially meta tags, instructions for search engines and browsers.
HTML Instructions
Search engines expect HTML ‘title’ and meta tags to summarize your content.
This is the first information seen.
The example below shows where web page content is summarized.
The page title, description, keywords, and robots are explained in detail after the example.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>displays prominently in the browser and search engines</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="Description" content="the first lines display in search engines">
<meta name="Keywords" content="used by search engines to index the web page">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOARCHIVE">
</head>
<body ....
.... content [graphics, images, alt-code, buttons, links, text, tables]
used by search engines to index and display your website
.... presentation
directs content order and grouping – how you are identified
.... copyright [help protect your investment]
</body>
</html>
|
|
<title> |
Click on www.google.com to see examples of a title on the top line of your browser and on the task bar at the bottom of your screen.
Search Yahoo on article+manage+organization+behavior to display the title Yahoo uses for searches.
Also notice web page titles are displayed as the first line in search results.
|
|
"description" |
Your web page description will sometimes display with search results.
Try your 5-second business introduction or a directory listing to describe your home page, maybe two lines describing what you offer and your key strengths and benefits.
Ours goes, “OP!DEV ® is a management solutions company. We combine strong leadership, planning, and innovation practices for fast results.”
Our services page emphasizes, “Effective strategy, change, people, and information management.”
|
|
"keywords" |
Some search engine robots, spiders, and crawlers index your web page using your keywords meta tag.
Keywords are also the words and phrases people enter when they search.
Your keywords meta tag should be consistent with your content.
For example, our Case Studies pages include keywords found in the text.
Try out a keyword analyzer. http://www.wordtracker.com has a free trial - enter your key words to select from the most productive phrases and synonyms. Look at their ‘help’ before starting.
You should receive an email with an analysis and explanation.
http://inventory.overture.com will return the number of times a keyword was used in a search the last thirty days.
|
|
"ROBOTS" |
Search article+manage+organization+behavior again.
Most Yahoo results have a link to a ‘Cached’ web page to help searchers.
However, the cached page can be weeks old and likely is not your current message.
NOARCHIVE instructs search engine robots to not archive [cache] your web page.
Searchers must click on your current web page to see it.
http://www.robotstxt.org has much more about robots.
|
|
HTML Resources
HTML, ‘Hyper Text Markup Language’, is supported everywhere.
It's a popular method to build web pages; this article was written in HTML.
You may be interested in learning more.
Find HTML lessons at http://www.google.com/search?q=html+tutorial.
Also visit web sites you admire.
You can look at most anyone’s HTML; go to your browser command line and click ‘View’, then ‘Source’.
Notepad is a simple text editor that works well with HTML and is featured with Windows.
There are many free HTML editors that will also format and check your work.
Find them at the websites with HTML tutorials.
Some editors have WYSIWYG, “what you see is what you get”, a visual assistant.
One is Mozilla Composer, part of the Mozilla browser from http://www.mozilla.org.
You can find more about HTML editors at http://www.mozilla.org/editor.
Most web page templates I previewed at http://www.google.com/search?q=free+html+template used advanced HTML concepts, such as style sheets or frame sets, or additional languages like JavaScript.
I recommend you use lessons and research to develop your first HTML.
Don’t abuse copyrights, otherwise your website can’t be serious. Or copyrighted.
Other helpful HTML resources:
HTML command Elements
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=
/workshop/author/html/reference/elements.asp
HTML & DHTML Reference
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=
/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/dhtml_reference_entry.asp
The HTML Coded Character Set
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_13.html
Get Found
Search engines use content to help customers find services.
Your customers. Your services.
You could do this yourself.
It would be faster with a guide.
And even faster with a developer.
Whatever your participation, you’ll save money and have earler results
if you coordinate your identity; including content, presentation, and meta tags.
There are more requirements.
Your own dot-com, email, a host to serve your website to the internet, and a control panel including File Transfer Protocol, mail management, and traffic reports.
Look into http://www.google.com/search?q=host+domain+ftp+control+traffic. A complete package is less than $5/month.
Free is available.
All software and resources referenced in this article are free or trial, unless noted.
I hope they are useful to you as well.
|
Jerry Hemmerling is the founder of OP!DEV ®, a company providing leadership, planning, and innovation services that energize change and get results.
Jerry may be reached by email at jerry@op-dev.com.
|
|
(503) 913-2564
info@op-dev.com
www.op-dev.com