SEO Checklist for Web Designing

Domain Name - Your domain name should be brandable
(example: Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, etc.), easy to say, and even
easier to remember. Don't worry too much about stuffing keywords
into your domain name. Keywords in domain names no longer have
the punch they used to.

www or not www - The choice is yours,
http://www.mysite.com/ or http://mysite.com/, pick one and stick
with it. I recommend using the www because the basic Joe Schmoe
Web server tends to type in www, anyway.

Simple Design - Don't reinvent the wheel. If your design
is complex, chances are it will hinder your visitors' ability to
navigate and view the site plus it will slow down development.
The simpler the better.

Don't create directories further than three levels down from
the root directory - The closer pages are to the home page
in the directory structure the better. Keep things organized but
don't overorganize. If you have one file or sub-directory in a
directory there should be a VERY valid reason.

File/Directory Names Using Keywords - Your filenames and
directory names should contain keywords. If your page is about
Idaho potatoes then the filename should be idaho-potatoes.

Static URLs - Static URLs are URLs that are not
dynamically generated. A static URL looks like
http://www.mysite.com/directory/file-name.html and dynamic URLs
look like http://www.mysite.com/index.html?page-name=. You can
make dynamic URLs spiderable by search engines but it's a lot
easier to get things indexed with static URLs.

Think Small - The smaller your Web pages are, the faster
they load. A single page should be less than 15K (unless
absolutely necessary) and the entire page including graphics
should be less than 50K (unless absolutely necessary). Remember,
not everyone is on a high-speed Internet connection; there are
still people without a 56K modem.

Hyphens - Use hyphens ( - ) and not underscores ( _ ) to
separate words in directory and file names. Most search engines
parse a hyphen like a reader would parse a space. Using
underscores makes what_would_you_do look like whatwouldyoudo to
most search engines. You should definitely separate words in
your URLs.

Navigation on Every Page - You should place consistent
navigation on every page of your Web site. Your navigation
should link to the major sections of your Web site. It would
also make sense for every page on your Web site to link back to
the home page.

Site Map - You should create a site map that links to the
major sections and sub-sections of your Web site. The site map
should be linked to from your Web site's home page at the very
least. Preferably the site map should be linked to from every
page. Recommend file names for your site map are "sitemap.html"
or "site-map.html."

Title - The title of the page should be used in the TITLE
tag and at the top of every page. The title should be keyword
rich (containing a max of 7 to 10 words) and descriptive.

Description META Tag - Some people say META tags are dead
but some search engines will actually use them underneath a
pages title on search engine result pages (SERPs). Use no more
than 150 characters including spaces and punctuation. Your
description should be a keyword rich, complete sentence.

Keyword META Tag - A listing of keywords that appear in
the page. Use a space to separate keywords (not a comma).
Arrange keywords how they would be searched for or as close to a
complete sentence as possible. This tag is basically dead but by
creating it when you create the page it allows you to come back
eons later and realize what keywords you were specifically
targetting. If the keyword doesn't appear at least twice in the
page then it shouldn't go in the Keyword META Tag. Also, try to
limit the number of total keywords to under twenty.

Robots META Tag - Some search engine crawlers abide by
the Robots META Tag. This gives you some control over what
appears in a search engine and what doesn't. This isn't an
essential aspect of search engine optimization but it doesn't
hurt to add it in.

Heading Tags - Heading tags should be used wherever
possible and should be structured appropriately (H1, H2, H3, H4,
H5, H6). You shouldn't start a page with an H2 tag. If H1 by
default is too big then use CSS to style it effectively.
Remember that most search engines like to see a heading tag then
text or graphics; not H1 followed immediately by H2.

TITLE Attribute - Use the A HREF TITLE attribute
(example: ). The TITLE attribute improves
usability/accessibility. Be sure to include keywords as you see
fit but remember it should tell your visitors where they will go
when they click the link.

ALT Tags - Every image should have an ALT tag. Use a
keyword rich description of what the image is. If the image
contains text use the text in the image. This is also a
usability/accessibility tool.

More text than HTML - A page should have more text
content than markup language.

Anchor Text - Anchor text is the text used to link to a
page. Using keywords in anchor text is a very good idea and will
improve a page's performance in SERPs.

Use Text Links, Not Images - If you're going to link to
something use text. Text in images can't be read by href="http://www.boundlessservices.com" target="_blank">search
engines. The only time this rule doesn't apply is when
you're linking to something with a well known logo. Even then
it's still better to use a text link. If you must use an image
as a link then make sure you give it a good ALT tag.

Gobs of Content - The more content, the better. Having
pages upon pages of original, relevant content is the best form
of search engine optimization.

Add New Content Often - If you can add a new page of
content every day then your site will stay fresh and give search
engine crawlers a reason to keep coming back day in and day
out.

Keyword Density - This is a touchy topic among Web
developers and search engine optimizers. Some say 5% is more
than enough. Chris Short says your main keywords shouldn't have
a density of more than 30% and should be higher than the
densities of other phrases and words.

Build It, Put It Online - Your site should be built and
in "update mode" once it's uploaded to your Web server. Don't
add a page at a time to your Web server when you're first
building your Web site. Build your Web site first then upload
it. Add new content as needed.

Use a robots.txt File - Every good crawler looks for a
robots.txt file in your root directory. I would highly recommend
creating a valid robots.txt just to appease these search engines
and at the very least eliminate 404 errors from building up in
your log files.

Validation - Every page on your Web site should adhere to
W3C standards as closely as possible. Some say page validation
can help your ranking in SERPs (the jury is still out on that
one). But, standards compliant Web pages do help with cross
browser compatibility.

Link Popularity - Once your Web site has been well
established, it's time to build up your link popularity. The
more relevant inbound links a Web site has, the better its
rankings will be.

Analyze Traffic - Read your log files often. Make sure
you're not getting traffic you don't want and getting traffic
you do want. Keeping a pulse on your traffic allows you to
better optimize your pages.

NO TRICKS - If it doesn't seem ethical, then it isn't a
good idea. If it doesn't help your visitors, then don't do
it.

NO FRAMES - Don't use frames, ever.

NO BROKEN LINKS - Linking to pages that don't exist is a
very bad thing. Search engines and people alike hate that.

About the author:
target="_blank">SEO Pakistan - Search Engine Optimization
Services and SEM Solution in Pakistan at href="http://www.boundlessservices.com/"
target="_blank">Boundless Services.