Code For SEO
Optimising your code for Search Engine Optimisation will require knowledge of HTML and will require access to the guts of your pages.
From the top down, I would suggest that optimised web site code would include:
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Your domain name
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Your directory structure, the names of the folders you keep your files in
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Your navigation link text and titles
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Your file names
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Your meta descriptions
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Your page titles
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Your header titles
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Your paragraph content
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Your image alt tags
It is of the utmost importance that each of these are as closely related to what you are saying or selling as possible and as closely related to each other as the law in your land will allow.
Code CheckList:
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Make sure each page has it's own unique and informative title
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If you can't make a unique meta description for each page, leave them blank - empty is better than repeated.
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Each page should have an H1 tag that relates to the page title and of course to the page content.
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Try to keep your H1 tag at the head of your content - i.e. try to avoid H1 > Nav Menu > Breadcrumb > Page Content.
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Get some analytics on all your pages.
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Small Head - where possible get your content as high as possible - where scripts and styles are referenced, try to link to them rather than long-hand them in the head content.
- In the same vein, if you can get your page content coded in before your navigation elements, so much the better.
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Use software such as Link Sleuth, or Deep Trawl to check for broken links & ugly URL's (capitol letters, underscores mixed with hyphens, etc)
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Ensure all your images have alt tags that are relevant both to their content and to the content of the page. Use titles as well if it pleases you. Many modern browsers wont show Alt Tags on mouse-over but will show image titles so titles can be useful.
