HTML CONSTRUCTS

Some basic html strategies should be followed when you develop pages for your sites.

robots.txt

robots.txt is the file that should be contained in the root directly of your web site. You can check to see if you do have such a file by accessing http://www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt. To see Google's robots.txt file click http://www.google.com/robots.txt. A more complicated robots.txt file can be found at http://www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt. For the specifics of the specification, you can look at www.robotstxt.org. Suprisingly enough, the robots.txt file is not under the control of the w3c. You can validate your robots file here at the Robots validator page.

HTML Title Tag

Each and every page should contain a descriptive title that is unique and specific to each page. Feel free to also turn your titles into a fuller description of the navigation path that the page is found under. Use the title of this page as an example. It really describes what is going on on this page. If we were to break this page up into greater parts, like if the subject of html title got its own page... it's title would read like this "Search Engine Optimization HTML Techniques, Title tag." Be as specific as possible. It will help you in optimizing your site, as well as provide better clues for your users.

File and Directory Names

One problem with larger sites is the use of dynamic pages to deliver content all through one page with query string parameters. One good thing about smaller sites is that we can name each page with a descriptive title. One that would match the content, as well as the title. It all should tie into each other and make clear sense. Expanding on this theme, you could also construct your directory structure in such a way that folders and directories carry further categorization and theme.

Keyword Densisty

Keyword density is something that should be considered. In the olden days one could create a page with the same content spammed all over a page, have a phrase repeated like crazy, etc. and have a site turn up high on the search results. But today's page ranking algorithms are far better at realizing what a realistic density. I have heard numbers any where from 5 to 18% for the key phrases that you are shooting for. Personally, I believe that it is most likely a sliding scale based on the size of the page. I doubt that anyone out side of the search engines algorithms department will know for sure.

One tool for determining the keyword density

Meta Tags

As of today, Google as well as other major search engines, do not consider meta tags in the ranking of pages. Some engines use meta tag information contained in the description to help give search engine users a look into what your page is all about. I know that meta keywords are still being used by search engine Inktomi.

The robots meta tag is still used by most all engines. This tag will read and respected by most all search engines. It functions similarly to the robots.txt file in that search engines spiders will read this tag and made decisions based on it. The two directives in this tag are index and follow. Or index, no index, follow, no follow etc.