Page Design for Search Engines

This page deals with how pages should be written and what to consider on each and every page you write.

Each and every page you write has benefit, relevance and a place in the scheme of your entire website strategy. There are parts of each page that should be done right, things to avoid and things to ensure you get perfect.

Website Pages: The Content

The content of each page is important and should be drafted with three major points in mind:

Content on Your Website: Keywords

Use your keywords in your content where possible. Don't overdo it and don't "stuff" them all over your pages, but mention them, use them, describe them.  Mostly, this happens naturally when writing about your subject matter. As you may have guessed, this website is targetting "Business", "Website" and "Design(er)".  Re-read some of the content, look at the domain name, but most importantly - read the way the pages are written.

Website Headings Tags: Use Them!

One of the biggest failings in content that we see is the failure to use heading tags - <h1>, <h2> and <h3> - these are absolutely critical.  When drafting headings - make them clear, informative and concise.  A user should be able to look at all the headings on your page and get the overall picture of what that page is about.  If you are writing well, many of your headings will contain keywords and search engines LOVE that. Each page should have ONE <h1> tag on it - the main heading for that page.  Every 2 - 4 paragraphs should be a <h2> - a second level heading.  If your content is deep enough that it requires sub-sub headings - use the <h3> tag.  Remember how search engines like categorised content? Well, headings are how you categorise content within each page.

One of the biggest failings in content that we see is the failure to use heading tags - <h1>, <h2> and <h3> - these are absolutely critical...

Website Content: Write It Well

Your pages must be written descriptively and well.  No matter what else you may be doing with your website, people must be able to read it, absorb it, find it useful and informative. The best SEO'd website in the world is worthless if no one can stand reading your pages.  They will click the back button in the browser and find an easier site, that will probably make the sale.

Your pages must be written descriptively and well.  ...people must be able to read it, absorb it, find it useful and informative

Website Pages: The Meta Data

Meta data is literally "data about data" or, more descriptively, "information about your data". Meta data is used to describe the 'data' that you have written on a page, being your business website content.  There are 3 major parts of your meta data that should be done on each page:

Page Title

This appears in the title bar of a web browser - the very top left hand corner.  On your page, it is written like this:

<title>Search Engine Tips for your Business Website Pages</title>

The content between the <title> tags should describe the page properly, in english and hit the keywords that relate to the page.  And when we say "relate to", we mean exactly that - the page title should be words that will feature prominently on your page.

Meta Description

The page title is something that users see and search engines pay attention to.  The meta description is only used by search engines.  Contrary to popular belief, meta tags do very little these days.  Search engines have learned the hard way - ignore what website designers say the page is about and pay attention to what's really on the page - what the website page is really saying.  However, meta tags still count, if only in a minor way and search engines DO use them on occassion in their search results.  Usually, the title of the search engine result is the page title and the description rendered by the search engine about the page is your meta description.

The meta description should accurately describe the content of your page and should be fairly similar (but not identical to) your page title.  It should also be a bit of a sales pitch, since it it is the text that a person searching will most likely scan before they click the link.  Here's what one would look like (refer back to the page title section of this page):

<meta name="description" content="SEO business tips for website pages, headings, meta tags and content" />

The meta description...accurately describe the content of your page...should also be a bit of a sales pitch

Meta Keywords

Very similar to the meta description, your meta keywords are basically the "condensed" version of your page.  It is a comma separated (known as "delimited") list of words that are the major keywords for your page.  A meta keywords tag for this page might read as follows:

<meta name="keywords" content="website, seo, search engine, optimisation, meta tags, business, web, site" />

The meta keywords should mention some or all of your major targetted keywords.  Do not put all of your relevant tags on every single page - it is a good thing to mix them up a bit and be relevant.  Not every page is going to be about the same thing, so keep it on topic - your keywords can't be the same thing on every page, otherwise you are telling the search engines that every page is about the same thing.

Now, this part is a bit of debate amongst SEO experts - how many keywords to put in your meta keywords tag.  Some experts suggest putting as many in as are relevant - and if that means you have 40 keywords, fine - do it.  Other experts (and I'm one of these...) suggest that you keep it simple and stick to 10-15 keywords or less.  If your pages are well written, you should be able to reflect what your page is about with less than 15 keywords.  I always recommend resisting the urge of putting as many in as you can and sticking to being concise.

meta keywords should mention some or all of your major targetted keywords.  Do not put all of your relevant tags on every single page - it is a good thing to mix them up a bit and be relevant