Is your website search engine friendly?

Fact: Search Engines can ONLY read text!

Reality: a Picture is worth a thousands words.

Conflict:

Resolution:

Things you can do to "text" your images
1. Title each image
2. Use alternative text
3. Name you graphics and images with keywords. For example instead of img1.jpg call you image: red_lipstic.jpg

Search Engines Check List

1. Splash page

   – if your site’s homepage is starts with a splash page – it cannot be seen. As a rule flash cannot be seen or read by search engines.

2. Flash Menus

   – here comes the real nightmare for designers. Flash menus are both beautiful and useful. They are useful because you can create one menu and insert it into your webpages. Every time you need to make a change you only make it in one place. Even if you are not using this feature, the menus look good. Using flash menus means that search engines cannot read your navigation at all. The solution is to use DHTML or other possible code.

3. Images

   – are your images properly titled? Do you have alternative text? Did you name your images in words related to your website key words? If you embedded your images or left them with names like img1.jpg the search engine will not be able to use them or even see them.

4. Image maps

   – image maps can be very useful tool. Be sure again to define each area with a proper name. Instead of area1 or square1 use the actual keyword for example: scanner1, lipstick2.

5. Links

   – a common mistake is to use phrases like: more, read more, click here, etc. these links will register in the search engine as (you guessed it) more, click here. These are most like are NOT your key words. All links must have a connection and be related to your key words. Instead of just “read more” use: read more about our scanners. (“Scanners” is the linked word.)

6. Page Titles

   – when creating a website from scratch or template be sure to change the page title to be related directly to the content of the page and the site. The title tags cannot exceed 65 characters (including spaces). Anything more than that will be cut off.