In last month’s article, we discussed the quality of your content. But, you should also be concerned about its placement. Your search engine-friendly content should be placed up at the top of the page, not at the bottom. For instance, it may not help you to set a scene of beautifully set tables, with fine wine and a romantic atmosphere – and then at the bottom of the page, state that you own a catering business located in the Puget Sound area. Instead, you should lead with this information and talk about the type of atmosphere you can create later.

The content and pictures on your site should also be well balanced. When it comes to text vs. pictures for a search engine, text always wins. However, it’s better for the user of your site if they aren’t overwhelmed with a lot of text. The converse is also true – be sure that your site doesn’t look like a picture book for kids. So, do choose your pictures carefully – they should illustrate and balance the text and neither be overwhelmed by, nor overshadow the text.

But, since your pictures aren’t recognized by search engines, it’s important to use ALT tags. Think of an ALT tag as a caption written in HTML code. A picture of a swan would have an ALT tag that states “this is a picture of a swan.” While it may not capture the attention of a search engine as much as regular text, this extra step certainly can’t hurt! ALT tags are also a nice touch for the visually impaired, as the browsing tools they use do recognize and describe picture ALT tags.

Which brings us to the next tip: think of your user first! Search engine rankings can be influenced by the number of visitors to your site. The more visitors, the better the ranking. If your site doesn’t function well, or is visually unappealing, chances are that you’re not going to see many visitors who stay and click through the various pages of your site. A low visitor rate may lower your chances of being found by a search engine. So, treat your site as you would your own physical business, keeping the user in mind – ensuring that it’s neat, tidy, and works well for your customer. This will help generate traffic and ultimately, the attention of search engines.

Our clients often ask us about the importance of including links to other sites. The answer is that they don’t often help as much as you might think. In-bound links are far more important in Web site rankings than outbound ones. In-bound links on a site are ranked by number as well as quality. The more in-bound links you have the better. But, where those links come from is also important. Industry-related in-bound links are going to fare better with search engines than unrelated ones. So, while cousin Vinnie’s link from his hardware store to your bridal shop site may be helpful, it isn’t nearly as great as a link from cousin Marilyn’s wedding cake business. And out-bound links may help if you have a reciprocal agreement, but the sheer number of out-bound links, or to what sites the links are directed, aren’t very important to a search engine.

In summary, there are a few easy things you can do to make certain your site is found by search engines. Put your customer first, use simple tools like alt tags, and provide a well-balanced site when it comes to pictures and text.