The following article addresses some of the more common mistakes made when trying to build a website based on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). If the 10 points below are followed, although high search engine ranking is not guaranteed, the website would have been created on a solid foundation and the basics will be in place.

1. Keyword Stuffing
In the old days of web design the use of keywords in the META tags was an important way of directing search engines to your site. There is some discussion now as to whether the KEYWORDS tag still adds anything to SEO results in the Google algorithm but given the uncertainty it is probably best to still include several keywords, just in case.
The main point is not to include too many. Most experts will tell you to include no more than 15-20 words and phrases. More than that and the search engines consider it to be keyword stuffing (adding more and more irrelevant terms to boost your site’s results for certain search terms).

2. Not Using Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc)
The search engines use the H tags of HTML to estimate the importance of the text, believing that section headings, titles, etc will be highlighted through the use of the tag. H1 is considered more important than H2 and so on down the list. The common mistake here is to use CSS to style headings (including font size and color) and not wrap the text in the H1 tag. For example:
< h1 >Some important title text < / H1 > in the HTML code can be backed up with CCS code

For SEO results the above example is far better than this:

SPAN ID=”header” >Some important text< / SPAN which is then linked to CSS.

As the second example does not make use of the H1 tag, search engines give the text no higher level of importance.

3. Location Of Keywords In The Text
The search terms you have selected to use as keywords need to appear on the webpage as close to the top of the page as possible for maximum SEO benefit. This includes Titles, headers and the opening paragraphs of the text. Search terms located further down the page lose significance in proportion to their distance from the top. For maximum benefit the keywords need to appear as close to the top as possible and with an overall frequency of 2 or 3% (the keywords make up2 or 3% of the words on the page). A common mistake here is to use the keywords too often or too rarely and poorly structure their position on the page.

4. Page Titles
The title of the page (what shows in the top left corner of the browser) is used by search engines to determine the relevancy of the page. Therefore it is important to give the page a title that accurately reflects the content and relates to the keywords. When using templates to build the webpages it is easy to overlook updating the page title which results in several pages having the same title which has little or nothing to do with the content.
In general, keep the page title relevant and group the keywords closer to the start of the text if possible. Don’t stuff the title with words, try to keep it brief.

5. Avoid Link Farms
Once the website is up and running, it is common to receive emails from other sites offering to swap links with you to increase page rank. Google has decided to battle this behaviour and now penalises sites that participate in such schemes. Link farms can often be identified by the large amount of unrelated links that appear on the page. If offered reciprocal links check the other website carefully and make sure they are in some way connected to your business or site. Being detected by Google can result in very bad search results and even being removed from the Google directory for a period of time. This not what you want!!

6. Submitting Your Site Too Early Although this is a tactic used by some to start appearing in search results faster, you should not submit your site to search engines until it is complete. If the bots start indexing your site while it is in an incomplete state, the result may not be what you intend. Broken links and test pages don’t score well in search results.
Only submit the site when it is ready to be viewed by the user. The bots will get the same experience your user does, which is what you are after.

7. Use ALT Text For Images
All images can make use of the ALT tag which allows you to add text which displays if the image doesn’t or if the mouse is hovered over the image. The ALT tag is useful for accessibility if users can’t see the image (a screen reader, for example, would say what was in the ALT tag as it can’t describe the image) but is also a good addition to SEO practises. The text in the ALT tag is scanned by the search engines and plays a part in search results.
Therefore, use the ALT tag to give all images a meaningful message. Make it descriptive. For example your company logo should have ALT text that says “Acme Co” (for example) rather than “company logo”.

8. The Use Of Poor Search Terms
The key to good results in the search engine rankings is the search terms you compete for. This is a huge topic and I’m not going to go into depth here. Have a look online for more detail on how best to select keywords. In essence, the terms you decide to use in your SEO efforts need to relate to your website. There is no use chasing rankings for sandals if you sell mountain bikes. But if you compete in an active industry trying to take on the big players for a word or phrase like mountain bikes, you’ve got a job on your hands.

he dream combination is to find keywords or phrases that describe your website but are not competed for that much by other websites. Before you get carried away with selecting keywords, keep in mind that they need to be search terms that your users will search for! There is no point being top for ‘azure seat covers’ if your users don’t search for that term.

This article is not a comprehensive introduction into the field of SEO but does cover some useful basics that you need to keep in mind when designing your site. Each item here will add a certain advantage to your SEO campaign and when all are used in conjunction your site will be have the basics of SEO working for it.

Steve Allan works are as web designer in Christchurch, New Zealand. His areas of specialty are ASP.Net, database design and user interfaces. http://www.chimeradesign.co.nz