Search Engine Optimization

Ensure your content has the right “Context”

One of the most important, yet overlooked, aspect of HTML programming, is that it's a language with specific protocols and structure. Most beginner and intermediate programmers become too focused on what a page or web document looks like, presentation wise, and lose sight of something very important, when it comes to search engines, and how they view your page, and that is “context”

When we humans communicate with each other, there is always a context under which the communication takes place, whether it be with a friend, family member, co-worker, acquaintaince or stranger. Imagine, if every time someone spoke, they just blurted out random thoughts. Every conversation would be, not only an adventure, but an exercise in futility, because you could never stay on a topic long enough to resolve a question, or understand a point someone was trying to make.

When robots crawl web pages, they use the HTML references, or tags, inside it to determine the “context” of the text found associated with each reference, or located between the opening <TAG> and closing </TAG> references. And, each one of those references, like <P> ( paragraph ) has a defined purpose. In the case of the P tag, any text found between the opening and closing tag, would be considered a paragraph of text.

What should not be overlooked is each HTML reference means something to a robot, and needs to attribute the context of the content found between each opening and closing tag. Below is a list of common HTML references that are defined to contain text only.

H1

The most important text container on any page, and should reflect a summary, or theme, of what will be found on a page.

H2,H3,H4,H5,H6

In order from 2 through 6, these are the next most important text containers on any page, and should serve as a summary of what will follow the heading.

P

Simply a paragraph of text, and should be used whenever possible to contain any text displayed on every page that is indexable by search engines.

A

Anchored text which links a word, phrase, or sentence to another URL containing related information. Although, in practice, you can anchor other objects, such as images, search engines cannot relate these anchors the same as if they are text.

Note that for images, in particular, ALT and TITLE text are helpful for search engines to aid in relating the context of an anchored, image, hyper-link.

LI

List Item useful for ordering topics or options. It's worth mentioning many designers use LI for other purposes, like menus for instance, which is allowed, considering most menus involve text-related descriptions, and anchors.

TH

Table heading which serves as a heading for table data.

TD

Table data used to define chart, graph, or comparison data.

There are, of course, many available, and useful, HTML references that can be used to provide context for search engines. And, many of those references are overlooked, and not used at all, when they could serve to provide a greater context for robots and search engine crawlers. Below is a list of uncommon HTML references that can, and probably, should be used whenever possible, to aid search engines in determining context.

• ABBR
• ACRONYM
• ADDRESS
• BLOCKQUOTE
• CITE
• CODE
• DL
• DT
• DD
• LABEL
• VAR

It's important to remember that visitors to a web page may not “see” a difference, presentation wise, but robots, because they cannot “see” what the page looks like, rely on the HTML definitions to relate words and phrases.

For example, using the ADDRESS definition above, tells search engines the text found inside the opening and closing tag, of ADDRESS, is a physical location, like a business or home address. Whereas, if the same text ( home or business address ) were placed inside a table, or some other container, a search engine robot might not be able to relate the text as an address.

Context and Proper Structure Makes All The Difference

SEO, or search engine optimization, has really only one definition and meaning, and it has been distorted and manipulated throughout the Internet with individuals and companies attempting to put their own spin on what it really means.

For some, it means how often you can squeeze a word or phrase into a web document, while others factor in such things as keyword density, which defines how often a selected keyword appears versus other words on the page. But what does SEO really define ?

It's definition has been reworked, and modified, largely because of the advances to search engine algorithms, such as Google's, and, quite frankly, if more webmasters and web designers were more informed, the term might not need to exist, or be as prevolent within the Internet community as it is now.

SEO simply means to utilize every, proper aspect of HTML programming available to a web designer, and combine that utilization with the value of the content ( text ) found inside a web page, to maximize its potential with search engines. Now, what seperates good websites, from bad ones, is obviously a combination of what the website looks like, and the content. Do not confuse SEO and quality content or a good marketing strategy, although they are both important to the success of a website.

Every person who creates a website is not going to be the best content writer, the best artist or designer, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but each person does have the ability to optimize their website for search.

Context is everything in SEO, and cannot be mentioned enough, because many disregard or ignore the fact HTML tags have been defined for specific, and unique, purposes for both web browsers and search engines. Let's examine a paragraph, from this article, and compare two different instances of it's deployment in a web page - the first paragraph is without optimization, while the second is fully optimized. And, we will also examine the HTML code of each paragraph to see the differences.

Poorly SEO Optimized Paragraph

The above paragraph of text is just words found on a page, to a search engine, and each word may hold little relevance to the rest of the page, or even the website.

Properly SEO Optimized Paragraph

If you were to view the above paragraph in a browser, aside from the hyper links, or anchored text, you wouldn't notice much of a difference, but search engines definitely will. Each word is part of a paragraph of text, and each word that is linked, via a URL, is now related to another web page. And, depending on where those links end up, and what content a search engine robot will encounter, can multiply the relevance of that word or phrase many times over.

The optimized version of the paragraph is also designed to lead your visitors to other areas of your website, making them aware of additional content they might not have otherwise noticed. And, of course, robots, if you have allowed it, will follow all of those links, resulting in more crawling of pages, which translates to a more up-to-date website profile.

Search Engine Optimization is directly related to both the value of your website, with search engines, and the enhancement of your visitors' experience, which is exactly what you want, when building a quality website. After all, the point of building a website should be to please your visitors, encouraging them to, not only come back again, but tell other people about it too.

Solid Document Structuring is the Precursor to a Solid Website Foundation

Now that you understand how search engines view the contents of your web pages, it's time to analyze what value they see in what's contained inside the pages. Developing a Website Strategy is paramount to prepare your site for success, as we cover the architecture and structure of how well your web pages interact with your visitors, and search engines.