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Color schemes, font size, layout of pages, and navigation structure must be consistent throughout the site for the benefit of both humans and those search engine “tigers” that we want to keep well fed at all times!

Functional and uniform layout
Keep navigation consistent and clear. It is the most important concern for good “usability”. Visitors are more likely to stay at your site when they realize how quickly they can find their way around. Keep the link names (“anchor text”) as simple as possible. Your home page link should be easy to find so people can “start over” if they get lost.

Large link buttons are hard to miss!

Understandable Navigation
Arrange the pages (navigation) as if you are giving a tour which culminates in a purchase or contact. The hierarchy of the site should flow from most requested information to the least important so that significant areas are easy to find.

Keep site structure logical
Create a list or flowchart of the major content areas and sort individual pages into their relevant categories. It will be easier for visitors to locate the specific information they want if the structure makes sense. If a series of pages is dedicated to a particular purpose, include it as a directory name within your hosting account, giving you additional credit for keywords. For example, a shoe store may categorize items by type and then each type by brand. Great choices of directory and page names for “ABCShoes.com” could be:

Running Shoes
ABCShoes.com/running/asics.html
ABCShoes.com/running/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/running/nike.html

Tennis Shoes
ABCShoes.com/tennis/reebok.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/nike.html

Keep the structure relatively flat, meaning as few layers (directories, sub-directories) as possible. Shorter paths to internal pages result in more credit by search engines.

Organize link menus
Ensure easy access to each page. Large sites may need a Site Map, Search Feature or drop-down menu such as at http://www.HealthandEndurance.com. In particular, a horizontal or vertical drop-down menu allows easy categorization of pages, while using a small area of the page. With multiple sub-menus, visitors can jump from one page to another with minimal clicks. New pages can be quickly added at to the appropriate location.

Top and side navigation

Maintain consistent layout features
All pages must show consistency in terms of backgrounds, colors, navigation, font sizes, etc. If they don’t look like they all belong to the same website, you don’t look professional. It also invites confusion.

Capturing the attenion of viewers is difficult enough, so when you keep them more than a few seconds, make sure that they see a reason for future visits as well.  Return traffic is like gold!

Out of date content is a turn-off
Periodic updating and addition of text helps rank by showing that there is “fresh” and current content on individual pages and the site as a whole. If visitors notice incorrect or out of date information, their impression is that your website is untrustworthy. When your “coming events” page lists items from the previous year, you may as well be asking people to leave your site. They might assume you are no longer in business!

A regular schedule of web updates could be monthly, quarterly or even annually, as long as information remains valid. If it costs you money each time a web designer or webmaster makes changes or uploads new material, you may want to set up a couple of pages to update yourself at no added cost. Have your designer create a database and code for you to easily log in with a simple username and password to add, edit or delete information. This works well for an “Announcements” section of your homepage or a “Company News” or “Coming Events” page.

A website built to display a schedule of events (meetings, softball games, concerts, etc,) can include a calendar that is easily maintained by an administrator without the need for technical know-how. When clicked on, any entry can display a page with full details – part of the same database of information.

Use original page text
Do not use similar text on several pages of your site, just to have more content. Do not copy text from another website just because it contains good keywords. Google levies a “duplicate content” penalty which will cause the duplicate pages to be filtered out, making them worthless in search engines. This is done to prevent “mirror sites” from both appearing high in results and usually means that whichever page was first indexed would be regarded as the “valid” source by Google.

Add pages for special occasions
Do you have a brand new idea or service or product line? Are you seeking a new target audience for existing products or services? Add a page to address their needs and concisely show how you can fill those needs. You may want an advertising campaign to lead directly to that page, instead of the home page. After a site is already built, additional pages can be added quickly and inexpensively, since the standard page template merely needs to be filled in with words and pictures.

Focus on your specific niche market
Especially if you’re in a large or very competitive industry, a smaller player needs to find and fine-tune factors can be used to your advantage. If you specialize in certain segments of the market or serve a group within the general population, your website must reflect that in text, images, headlines.

Emphasize your specialties and highlight aspects that make you unique. If you’re a travel company which specializes in adventure trips to Costa Rica, you may want to mention that on every page to show that you’re the best choice for that situation. It’s no secret that a company should play up it’s strong points. “Travel” is the mostsearched-for term on the internet. Chances of appearing high in organic search results is remote. Your odds are considerably better for “adventure trips” and greater still for “Costa Rica adventure trips”.

Enjoy your trip to the top of the search engines!

The most important website content is the text on your pages.  Besides the usual places to incorporate key words and phrases (such as your paragraphs and bullet lists), look for other opportunities to add search terms that reflect the page content.  Here are some ideas!
 
Each page must support the site as a whole
Consider how words on any one website page support each other and how keywords used throughout a site will strengthen the rank of the site as a whole. A page which uses the terms “rivers”, “streams” and “lakes” can rank higher than one that only discusses “rivers” since those terms are themselves related. A site with specific pages highlighting each may beat out a site that again only talks about “rivers”. So keep in mind the relevance of terminology within pages and over a number of pages.

Speaking of rivers, the tone of text should “flow” in the same general direction throughout a site. If different people are responsible for writing different pages, an editor should be appointed to give the site a uniform feel.

Maintain strong customer focus
Build the site and flow of information on each page from the customer’s point of view instead of your own. Meet their needs before presenting your credentials and “why to buy from us”. People are only interested in you if you can help them. Here’s a real world example… When prospects call or visit, instead of first telling them about yourself and your wonderful background, ask what you can do for them!

Make images more visible with alt tags
Although images don’t qualify as content to the same degree as text, you can make them more tasty to Google and Yahoo as well. Image “alt” tags should be used to describe photos and graphics to robots and visually impaired viewers. Insert a text description of one or more words as follows:
<img src=”images/tiger-photo.jpg” alt=”Photo of hungry Bengal tiger”/>

Runners enjoy an orange sunset. (description of image)

Squeeze in some fine print
Image captions, smaller print notes, and even copyright lines of text allow additional inclusion of keywords. You may not want to clutter a page with too much text or by repeating the same terms over and over, but there are always opportunities to squeeze in some remarks such as below an image. Even generic images could have a short comment under it. Your page about tigers in Africa may include a couple photos. Even if no explanation is necessary, “African tigers” would definitely not be out of place. Or maybe it’s an opportunity to inject some humor into a dry subject, pleasing both robots and humans simultaneously.