How to Prepare Web Pages
for Search Engines

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General Principles of Web Site Design

Winning high search engine rankings begins when you first start making a web page. Although existing web pages can always be changed and optimized for search engines, time and effort is saved when principles of effective search engine design are met simultaneously with the need for valuable content, logical structure and attractive presentation.

The foremost principle to practice in web site design and search engine strategy is, quite simply, honesty. Practicing this time proven principle will help you express your truth, attract relevant visitors, and avoid penalties from search engines for dishonesty ("spamming").

Design a separate web page for each significant product line, service or idea that you want to present. Also be sure to prepare each of these pages - not just your home page - for search engines. Doing so will enable you to target a variety of key phrases, and allow surfers to find you for a variety of descriptive search terms. The more intelligently designed web pages you have, the more phrases you can target, and the more traffic your site stands to receive.

Choosing Target Key Phrases

Compose a target key phrase for each of your web pages. These 2 or 3 words are the search phrase for which you expect your page to be found. Each key phrase that you target must meet both of the following equally important criteria:

1. the phrase must express the theme of its web page impeccably;
2. the phrase must be likely to be searched on.

The importance of choosing key phrases that meet these two criteria cannot be over emphasized. The need to make these choices before you ever write a single line of HTML similarly cannot be stressed enough. Key phrase choices lie at the very HEART of excellent web page design for search engines.

A target phrase of at least two and preferably three words is most likely to win top rankings on search engines. The WWW is already enormous (currently estimated total size is about 200 million web pages), and as we hear every day, it continues to grow explosively. Because of all this competition, targeting a single key word, though certainly an option, is usually impractical and challenging (unless it's a rarely targeted word like flummoxation, splendiferous or phantasmagorical).

One final word on target phrase identification: tackling the second key phrase criterion (the phrase must be likely to be searched on) requires only an educated guess. The best guide in this endeavor is common sense. For example, if you are marketing jewelry that reflects ancient civilizations, the word "ancient" would be descriptive of your art, but would not be likely to be searched on. A word like "gold" would be a more likely key word. Take your best guess, put it out there, and see what happens. Experience is the best teacher for finding targets that generate traffic. Respond to the feedback from your initial ranks by tweaking your pages and maintaining your listings on search engines.