Web Builders: Get Your Simple Site Seen!Easy Accessibility and Search Engine OptimizationThe material in this short article has been collected over years of trial and error, reading trade journals and taking courses. It is fast but valuable information that shows the quickest, most compact way of getting high search engine and directory listings. And when search engines can read a site, so can people.Guard this training; use it only to promote that which is good, wholesome and conducive to life, else it won’t work for you anyway. |
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Jackson Snyder Bible Commentary |
The first result has the description tag coded. The second does not. I must look further to find out about the second result, or abandon it altogether.
I find exactly what I’m looking for in YOUR site if the DESCRIPTION is coded and I find it on a search engine. Otherwise, I only know the IRL / URL to which I’m being linked and have to go PEEKING AROUND.
Code the KEYWORDS tag as well using the exact directions of your tutorial source. You will want to put some thought to what search terms you expect potential visitors to enter into a search engine to find you. Some search engines use KEYWORDS (or Key Phrases) to point searchers to sites – and even in some cases to rank sites.
ALT Tag: The Americans with Disabilities Act alt tag is used to apply a description to an image (pictures). When the picture is moused-over, the description in the tag displays. Also, if the picture is gone, the <alt> tag contents still display. Alt was originally created to assist the auditory- and visually-impaired to learn the significance of an image or illustration through the text description, and if the image contains a hyperlink. Furthermore, now the alt tag is now used by web crawlers and search engines to rank a site; and as far as I know, a site builder can therefore add 256 more characters to a picture which means significant extra content that will definitely be used by engines and anyone who moused over a picture.
Every single image, banner and button should be alt coded, and generously. This is a reason to exclude graphics and graphical buttons unless they are properly coded – handicapped users will not be able to navigate a site without alt- and Meta-tags. Plain textual links are still the best. Fancy Javascript menus are fun to play with, but maybe not always practical for a straightforward site. Simple is beautiful – so consider the kind of viewers you will have, including the aging population, some with disabilities and those with limited English skills.
Here is a good example of a very descriptive advertisement using the <alt> tag:
<img border="0" src="../images/napban.jpg" width="741" height="131" alt="Be sure to check out Park Models Manufacturing NEW Condo Cottage Models. You may click the sign below or this Naples Condo Model picture.">
By the way, the alt tag may be coded in FrontPage through the “Picture Properties” form.
Every Page Commitment: Search engines list and rank by the page, not by the site. That means every single page needs significant textual information in the Title, Meta-title, Meta-description, Meta-keywords, Pragma and Alt tags. For the programmer in a rush, the tags can be coded in Notepad and pasted into each page. Microsoft Help and Support suggests we do tags this way in order to assure that the Pragma tag works properly[5]:
<HTML> (This will already be in the code)
<HEAD> (So will this)
<META
HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="5"> (always the same)
<TITLE>Your Web Page Title</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Your description">
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="keyword1 keyword2"> (better to use
phrases)
At the end of the BODY section, put in another short HEAD section:
</BODY> (This will be in the code already)
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
</HEAD>
</HTML> (This ends the page)[6]
Now keep your content fresh and inviting. Modify it often.
Site
Maps:
Some developers think the site map is an outdated resource; however, site
maps are not only very useful tools for inexperienced web viewers, but
also are prey for web spiders because of the juicy links found on
a site map. The map need not be complicated, but should include all
pages, even bookmarks (if possible) and be kept up-to-date.
Here is a simple site map that can be searched by using the browser’s built-in capability (“View on this page” in the Edit menu).
index.htm ............. {Focus
Haiti home, index, links, graphic}
fb.htm ...............
{feedback box, email, no address}
sitemap.htm .......... {this
page}
\pages
about.htm ......... {explains
the purpose of the site}
feeds.htm ......... {contains
links to xml feeds used elsewhere 4/4}
links.htm ......... {history,
arts, politics, culture linked sites}
members.htm........ {listing
of current members}
news.htm .......... {4 news
feeds from yahoo, miami herald, etc.}
opinion.htm ....... {abstracts
from articles, blogs and opinion}
response.htm ...... {page that
displays after form submissions}
search.htm ........ {site
search engine}
subscribe.htm ..... {contains
a vr newsletter submission form}
weather.htm ....... {4 weather feeds, PAP, Miami, Cap, St. Marc}[7]
Search Box:
I like every front page to have a search box if the site features text
(like articles, blogs, playlists, manuscripts, or .pdfs). The major
WYSIWYG HTML editors all have the capacity to insert such a component
(though some do not work very well). There are many companies who
will give you a free search box for a little ad. The problem with
site search is that your personal engine must be made aware of your new
pages, changes and entry points.
PicoSearch.com makes this whole search confusion pretty easy with custom-built code, and several styles and many options from which to choose. Some of the major search engines and directories also offer “free” search capabilities for your site, though some of these come with massive advertising. You may also put popular searches up as stand-alone web pages – all the more to draw visitors and crawler / spiders.
Simple Navigation: You have already surmised that I do not like Java Script menus unless they are straight-forward. My time is at a premium and so is yours; and isn’t your visitors’ time precious? Sure! Give them easy navigation with nested links in sans-serif or simple scripts. And place your navigational components in the same spot on every page (or use and include component).
If you have time, go out to my simple home site at www.JacksonSnyder.com. Please use Internet Explorer for this demonstration, 7.0 if you can. Idiosyncratic, no?

Title: Check the TITLE tag of my home page at the top of your browser. This conveys a lot of info to the user (including the handicapped user), and to the search engine. It’s also very clear as to what I do for fun. So let it be essential to code the TITLE tags appropriately. If you want, look the site up in a search engine and notice how the Site Description comes up with the find.
Font: Notice also the ease at reading small print on my home site using a trebuchet sans serif font (which comes pre-installed in Windows XP machines), even though the color scheme isn’t traditional. (Someone said they really liked the background color, so I kept it that way! Why not?)
Search: Also, there is a prominent search box. The front page is deceptively simple since the site itself is huge, larger than most corporate sites; whole volumes of text are on that engine. But since that’s my page, built for me, all I need is the search box to find that for which I’m looking. I am no stranger to the place. But I realize that strangers do come by here – right now about two thousand pageviews-worth every single day, according to the host’s stats.
Pictures: Slowly mouse over the large iconic pictures at the left to learn that these pics represent sites; the alt tag for each makes it clear where I am going if I click on the picture. I know what each site is about without taking up space or going there. See also what is read by auto readers to the visually impaired (like Verbose®[8] text to speech reader). This same info on the alt tag is scooped up by spiders, which therein also find another reference point to the sites that they can use to rank the remote sites higher. Note also that all these pictures are precisely sized and properly compressed for faster loading. There are a lot of images on the page, but they load quite quickly. I know because I recently timed them on a dial-up machine.
Banner: Watch the use of a banner / header image. Make SURE your banner is optimized for quick loading (a .jpg or a lot of little pics that come together when it’s loaded). Make SURE the <alt> tag has the name of your site in it and a description of your purpose. Often (I am told) web spiders will just bypass a site with too many untagged graphics or a big, untagged banner / header. Spiders don’t like banners in their web, so they might not even look at the rest! Most of my pages do not sport a graphical banner.
Content Is Still King: Content will always be on the throne. However, what I do not have on my demo page is content. The content is hidden in the coding.
Did you know that web crawlers generally look at the top of the page and the bottom of the page for text? So choose words and phrases that you think your visitors will put into a search engine to find you, put these words and phrases into the descriptions, the <alt> tags, and in a 300 – 500 word essay toward the bottom of the page. Try to follow this idea on every page! “Key Words” (search words or a phrase you think people will find you with) in the title tag, the same in the description tag, the same in some of the alt tags, and an essay at the bottom of the page about your site that contains the key words plus synonyms or synonymous phrases.
A very good and obvious example of this kind of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be found at www.parkmodels.us. Check the metatags against the alt tag and the essay at the bottom. You will find obvious similarities.
If you can’t write, there are multitudes of free content sites. Get a free article and put it at the bottom of the page with phrases from it in your title, description and alt tags. Search engines, directories and crawlers will love your pages and gobble them up, especially if you change the articles occasionally.[9]
From 60 to 2 in 5: I used this concept to remake and mirror the site www.parkmodelsmfg.com into www.parkmodels.us. My rewrite contains text in the top, on the pics, a text index, and an article on the bottom – all of which emphasize key words that I had chosen beforehand – words and phrases I thought interested persons would submit. And I was trying to get the site closer to the first page on MSN for my search words (key words / phrases).
The original site was not even listed on MSN though it had been on the Internet for a number of years. Within 5 weeks, the site had moved past all the competition to the number 2 spot on the first page of search results for the terms I had chosen. And when it got to number 2, it was ready for visitors. Not only that, but it pulled the parent site, the one I rebuilt (but left up), to number 3 because of my links to it.
The Beauty of the Hyphen: One technique that is not being used much (it is a secret, I guess), that will help your site fly to the top of search engine placement is to use your key words or phrases in the actual names of your pages. Look how search terms are used in the following page names:
cabins-park-model-style.htm
naples-park-model-condo.htm
log-cabins-dealers.htm
park-models-manufacturing-site-map.htm
Someone doing a search on “park model cabins” is definitely going to encounter my site.
In fact, on the www.Focushaiti.com site I showed you earlier, I changed the URL to www.Focus-Haiti-News.com. I have been getting far better pageview results!
If you do this with your site, take note: use the hyphen and not the underscore. With the hyphen, crawlers see multi-hyphenated words as separate words – they see the hyphen as a space. However they see the underscore (_) as another letter. So it would be even better if I used the hyphen in the URL: www.park-model-cabins.com.
This same idea goes for your IRL / URL name choice.
One of the sites I show in a picture above is www.FACHC.org – there are no tags, alts or text on the front page. I’ve been looking at this site some and I still cannot remember these letters. I need to remember something to find this again, then bookmark it. (Although, because there is only the default name tag, my bookmark will be “Home Page” – that’s a lot of help!)
Anyway, at the bottom of the page, we learn that this is the Florida Association of Community Health Centers. I learned that the FACHC is a fine organization that tries “to improve access to quality health services by bringing together agencies, legislators and key persons able to affect health care services.” (I didn’t find this description on the front page, but I should have.)
Wouldn’t this valuable service be easier to find if the URL became www.health-services-in-florida.com? Or www.health-care-advocate.com? Or www.I-Need-Medical.com? If the instructions above were followed in this site, and someone comes along and pops “I need medical” into MSN, what site do you think will be on the first page?
Your
refurbished and uploaded pages will eventually be grabbed up by the
great
minds and machines that make decisions about search engine placement.
If you have completed the upgrades I suggest and have incorporated your
search terms / phrases into the text of the pages, the tags, the page
names and the URLs, then within six months you will have pretty good
attendance at your site, and your viewers will be very happy because you
have kept them foremost in your mind while building.
If you want to see those results in a shorter period of time, you may pay a company to submit your site – there is one company I use with good results[10] - or you may submit yourself. It is only necessary to submit ONE page for each site, since that page is linked to your other pages. And you only need to submit to three companies – in doing so the rest of the search crowd will get the drift. Submitting any more pages to any more sites is a waste of time. (Although the offer to submit to 300 sites for $2.50 has captured my dollars many times.)
Yahoo Directory and The Open Directory Project are the most important and most difficult places to be accepted and placed. Because they use people, the information contained in these directories is very important to other search sites that use robots. Probably no more explanation is necessary.
A final note on submission and placement – you may already be listed (and probably are someplace) on these search sites. If you have optimized your site with the tips above and you would like to get the site moving upward as fast as possible, you should definitely resubmit your Search Engine Optimized site under a new URL, like
Make sure there are plenty of links, especially links to your old site (which may already be listed). Both the new and the old may then ascend the search engine scale together.
Web site building and promotion is very competitive, but money cannot purchase a clean, ergonomic site or a higher search ranking. Amateur webmasters, if you have acquired this material and put it into play, then you will indeed fulfill your dream of having Internet fame, getting your message out or your product sold.
Yet this material has been collected over years of trial and error, reading trade journals and taking courses. It is valuable information in that it is the quickest, most compact way of getting the job done. Guard this training; use it only to promote that which is good, wholesome and conducive to life, else it won’t work for you anyway.
Jackson
Snyder lives in Tallahassee, FL. Some of the sites linked at
www.JacksonSnyder.com will betray his whereabouts, or you may call at
(801) 605-1715 for further information or help.
ENDNOTES
[1] See www.parkmodelsmfg.com for wolves.
[2] (See www.picosearch.com for instance.)
[3] Internet Explorer http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx
Mozilla Firefox Browser http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Opera Browser http://www.opera.com/download/
[4] metatag. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/metatag
[6] A good site for indexing help: http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/builder.html
Site Building Tips
http://www.miazo.com/site_uk/a_miazo/sitetips/sitetips_print.html
http://www.ineedhits.com/free-tools/blog/2007/02/5-tips-to-improve-your-search-ranking.aspx
[8] http://www.nch.com.au/verbose/index.html (text to speech reader)
[10] http://www.ineedhits.com/ (08/07/07)
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Sinaiticus Bible |