To make sure your site is built for the search engines, be sure to balance these elements in your Web design.

URL Structure:

Don’t bother using page IDs for your URLs. Changing your URLs to a worded structure will not only help with SEO, but it will also help your users know what the page is about. http://www.example.com/services is much better than http://www.example.com/?page_id=41. If you’re using WordPress for your website, you can simply go to Settings > Permalinks > and enter /%postname%/ as a Custom Structure. Also, make sure to have your site go to the www or the non-www version, but not both. That can potentially create duplicate content problems.

Use Flash in Moderation:

Incorporating Flash into your website is not bad, but too much of it is. The search engines are limited by what they can read within the Flash file, so do not put any text or important information within it that you may want the search engines to index.  Also, do not build the entire website using Flash. It will basically shield all your site’s content from the search engines deeming you irrelevant for the majority of keywords you’re going for.

In addition, Google has the new instant preview feature. If you use Flash, it can turn out blank or empty:

Here is a good use of Flash, and a bad use of Flash. Photographers everywhere are notorious for using all Flash websites.

Heading Tags:

Heading tags range from H1 to H6 and are great ways of separating out topics and giving a title to each page of content. When creating content for each page, remember to have only one H1 tag. If it sounds natural, use your keywords within this H1 to maximize its potential.

Here is a good use of H1 tags. A bad example would be any page with more than one H1 tag.

One Topic per Page:

If you have a variety of services or products, do not put them all on one page. Have your homepage be the broad focus of your business and create menus that go over your categories. Only have one product/service per page. It looks better, it’s simpler for the user to find what they need and you’ll thank yourself once you start targeting pages with keywords.

Don’t Use iFrames:

1998 called and they’d like their Web development methods back. Rarely is there a reason to implement iFrames for your website. An iFrame is basically a portal or window into another page within your website. The search engines cannot read the information within that window and that is why they’re useless. For the most part, iFrames have fizzled out but some major sites like Amazon.com and weather information sites will use them to enable users to display their content on their personal website effortlessly.

Here’s a site that uses iFrames. View the source page and search for some of the content you see on the site. You can’t find it and neither can the search engines.

Call to Action:

It doesn’t matter how much traffic your website receives, if it doesn’t convert, it’s useless. Many people don’t understand or value conversion optimization but it can significantly improve your bounce and conversion rate. A simple way of improving your amount of callers, orders, e-mails, leads, subscribers (or whatever you are using to identify a conversion) is to clearly display what you want that visitor to act on. If they should fill out a form or give you a call, make sure that action item is above their face where they cannot miss it.

Here’s an example of a good call to action, and a bad call to action.

Text within Images:

Many webmasters put text within an image because they want a special font to display or they just don’t understand HTML. The search engines cannot read what is inside images, so just don’t do it. Save yourself from doing it twice by doing it right.

Here is an example of a website using text within images. The header, footer and welcome title are all in images.

JavaScript within Navigation:

When you use JavaScript to display your navigation, the drop-down pages and the links that go along with them, it can create a barrier for the search engines because they have a hard time reading it. JavaScript isn’t as cut and dry as HTML and because there are a million ways to produce the same product out of JavaScript, it can really confuse the search engines.

Here’s a site that uses JavaScript with their navigation. If you disable JavaScript in your browser, its functionality goes away.

Navigational Structure:

Keeping your websites navigational structure clean and simple can be somewhat of a challenge for some people. Use categories, use parent pages and don’t exclude key pages from the navigation. If you want a visitor to buy that product or see that service, include it in your menu.

Although I somewhat enjoy this site, it is an example of a website with a confusing navigational structure.

Use of Content:

Each page should have its own unique text and images at the very least. Having other elements like video can help you too. Make sure each page has at least 150 unique words and 1 picture with descriptive alt text. Use that pages keywords in the text and image alt tag but don’t overuse it. SEO is a delicate balance and using your keyword once per 100 words is always safe.

Here is an example of a website with no useful text and lists of keywords.

Using Splash/Doorway/Squeeze Page:

When somebody first comes to your website, they should see your homepage, not a trendy or fun page in between. When the use of a splash page is used, it creates an unnecessary barrier between you and your visitors. This will affect your bounce rate and conversion rate and unlikely for the better.

Here is an example of a website using a Splash page.

Become a Blogger:

Search engines like to serve fresh content and using a blog is a great way to keep your site growing and active. Continually having new content for the search engines to index keeps their bot coming back and can even help you rank for longer tail keywords.

Our SEO blog is a great example of an active blog that posts new content about the industry it’s in.

Pay Attention to Site Speed:

If your website takes too long to load the page, odds are your visitors are going to get impatient and leave. The search engines also don’t like waiting around so site speed should be something to be concerned about. Having too many HTTP requests, large amounts of JavaScript and CSS files and large images to load can all contribute to a slow site speed.

Hopefully these examples will help you in the future if you choose to build a new website. As with everything, there are exceptions to the rule. But for the most part, these recommendations will help your SEO efforts as well as visitors that come to your website.

Do you know of any others? Please comment and add to this list.

Why Flash is Bad for SEO

While Flash is indexable by Google’s virtual user spider, we have yet to see a great deal of quality rankings from completely Flash websites — especially Flash sites for small, local businesses.

Unique URLs

With most Flash websites, many pages are contained, dynamically, in one .swf file. Most Flash sites use a ‘#’ to distinguish between pages. Sadly, Google doesn’t treat different ‘#’ URLS as separate pages. Consequently, Flash sites lose the extra SEO boost that comes from a multi-page website. Flex can fix the URL problem, yet many flash sites still don’t utilize Flex.

Smart Phone Dilemma

Smart phone users increase rapidly, expecting to reach 1 billion this year. Flash websites without an HTML alternative will be missing out on a growing chunk of their market (Restaurant websites really need to catch on here).

Poor User Experience

This heading is debatable as many would argue that Flash allows for a richer, more interactive experience. While this is true, many inexperienced designers aren’t in touch with contemporary Web usability. Flash adds a considerable load time that most users don’t have the patience for. While long intros, blaring music, and hidden buttons may seem like a thing of the Internet past, many websites still employ these revolting techniques.

Less Content

Flash websites typically have less indexable content. Let’s face it; a long page of keyword-rich text has more SEO sway.

When to Use Flash?

In my opinion, only two situations allow for a flash website:

1. Big Brand: Because big brands already have a truckload of links and a lot of search credibility, search engine optimization isn’t such a big concern. Pepsi’s principal revenue isn’t generated through their website. Rather, the website acts as a branding tool — much like an interactive television commercial. And, because Pepsi is such a big company and it has “pepsi.com,” we are safe to assume that SEO is not among their priorities (although the website should at least rival Coca-Cola and appear somewhere on the 1st page for “soft drinks.”)
2. Link-Thirsty Content: Link-thirsty Flash is not simply a “cool” animation well-liked by the marketing committee. Link-thirsty content clearly has the ability to go social and thus it attracts links like a porch light attracts moths. Mono put a lot of creative effort into their monoface application and consequently, I’ve seen that link passed around quite a bit.
   Games and applications might also be considered link-thirsty. Grooveshark’s slick interface and its vast music database gives it the ability to focus more on link-bait and social media rather than SEO.

How to Build an SEO-Friendly Flash website

Here are your options:

1. Use SWFObject: SWFObject allows you to place HTML code behind the Flash. It also keeps code cleaner by removing nasty object tags.
2. Don’t Call External Files with Flash: Google will treat external files such as XML files as separate pages. Make sure all of your text and links are embedded in the swf.
3. Use Minimal Flash: Adobe uses a Flash banner near the top of its website while still including the bulk of the textual content in HTML. This Web development technique is a common among corporate websites.
4. Don’t Use Flash: Wollzelle, has an attitude against Flash. The innovative agency in Vienna has developed a surprisingly fresh alternative to using Flash, with JavaScript code that can impress visitors just as well. Unfortunately, there are more visually creative Flash developers than there are JavaScript coders.

While I’ve given Flash a good lashing, I don’t mean to pooh-pooh it altogether. Flash is a powerful branding tool and also provides a good framework for application development.

So here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Currently Google is the only search engine who is noticeably reading Flash files. They have worked closely with Adobe to develop the right toolset for the Googlebot in order to read the files for indexing. Yahoo! is “working on it.” MSN is developing their own format, Silverlight, which will compete with Flash, so they probably won’t be developing the toolset necessary to read Flash files.
• Search engines still can’t follow JavaScript, so be sure that your links to Flash files are not done in JavaScript or the Flash still won’t be indexable and it won’t be because of the Flash file.
• Include keywords in your content—of course! Use relevant, researched keywords that you want to rank well for.
• As with your website, use text instead of images so the spiders have something to eat and index. If everything is in an image, there will be nothing left for them to index.
• Be sure to use an HTML layer for your Flash file and include all your links in it that are in your Flash file. Remember to not use JavaScript to execute any of your links.
• Use SWFObject 2.0 for the best programming that detects whether or not a browser supports Flash and then serveseither the Flash or HTML text version of the website based on what it detected. Read more about what’s required here on Google’s website.
• Google has noted on its website that they are having issues indexing bidirectional languages (Hebrew and Arabic).

According to the Google website their algorithm follows Flash files in the same way that a person would, by clicking buttons, entering input, and so on. The algorithm remembers all of the text that it encounters along the way, undoubtedly better than a person does; that content is then available to be indexed by the algorithm. Google utilized Adobe’s new Searchable SWF library in order to improve the algorithm’s effectiveness.

We’re still waiting to see what Yahoo! has to say about how they will index Flash, but it’s a safe bet that if you follow what Googlebot needs, Yahoo! will eventually be able to read it too.