The dynamics of website design, structure and coding is too vast a subject for a short article; but be aware that website structure will affect your SEO campaign, so acquiring information on the subject is definitely to your advantage. Whether you’re structuring your site from scratch or using templates, a basic idea of structure can make a difference to your campaign – and more advanced knowledge could send your rankings soaring.

The Internet is crawling with information on the subject, from search engine newsletters, to Website Optimization marketing campaigns, to very successful bloggers, who possess a wealth of knowledge that they are happy to share.

Some structural factors to be aware of

A number of elements in your site structure are interdependent, including the code used, how the site interlinks and technology used. If you’re using a template, some of these factors are taken care of for you, but your understanding of SEO should influence your choice of the type and design of the template you use.

Some elements on your site structure can assist search engine crawlers – others may confuse them. One such example is the use of ‘frames’. Frames are where your page is divided into separate areas, where one can scroll that area independently, without the rest of the page scrolling with it. Those multiple page elements can confuse crawlers; but if they do index something in that frame, when visitors link to it, they may link to just the particular information in that frame and not the whole web page.

Dynamic URLs can be another source of confusion. Those are URLs directed at specific information on your site, which have a large number of variables in the URL address. If you’re going to use them, try to keep the variables down to one or two, as simple as possible.

Content.

Effective linking points crawlers to your pages. Good quality inbound links from other sites is a major key to attracting crawlers, but avoid obviously using numerous links that indicate a sole purpose of attracting crawlers – that could incur penalties that would threaten your whole Website Optimization campaign!

The better, fresh text content you provide, the more crawlers will have to index, and the better your page rank could be. Use plenty of keywords legitimately and wisely, without spoiling your text or your chances of crawler-success by apparent spamming. The more content you have, the more opportunity you have of creating links as well.

Write text with your visitor in mind; ensure that text is easy to read, clear and pertinent.

Page Structure.

Don’t clutter your page. Crawlers don’t always read the whole page, so place the important information, keywords and good hypertext links at the top of the page, within the first two paragraphs.

It is counter-productive to your campaign if visitors and Web Crawlers have to wade through a clutter of graphics and JavaScript to get to relevant information, so minimize the use of those near your page top and focus on your key phrases and positive content.

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