Below is a list of things to look for to help optimize your website to make it more search engine friendly and user friendly.
- Look at what the title of the page is showing. This is shown at the very top of the browser and what the search engines display when showing the results of a search. The title should have 2 to 3 keywords, then your company name and then location. All of this should be in the first 60 to 65 characters, counting everything including spaces.
- Does each page have the same title tag; each title can be different with targeted unique keywords.
- Is the logo on your website a link to the homepage?
- Do all the web pages have a description tag? This tag is used by the search engines to display on the results page below the title description. To see what yours is showing, from the browser click on View/Source and look forand see what is in the content. You can use this to target keywords and help describe what is on the page.
- Do all the links on the page have title= tag with information about the link? If you move the mouse over the link it should show a small yellow box with information about the link. It will disappear after a few seconds. If it does, are keywords in the yellow box?
- Does the website have Google Analytics code and do you get a weekly report showing number of hits, bounce rate, keywords used to find your site, referral sites, and much more? Free account from Google and also help track hits if you use Google Adwords.
- The most important page is the homepage, does it tell what you do, and are keywords in the text and can they call, email or find your company address? Ideal number of words on the page is 350 to 500.
- If your business targets local customers, do you have a list of counties and communities you serve on the homepage?
- If you have any form type pages (Contact, Survey, etc.), are there edits to ensure something is entered? Enter nothing and click on the Submit button, hopefully a message will appear telling you what you didn’t enter.
- Are email addresses shown on any of the pages, make sure they are generic like info@.. and they are hidden by Java or & coding techniques. Don’t use personal emails, period. Don’t use xxx@aol.com, xxx@yahoo.com, xxx@gmail.com, use email account with website name.
- Do all images have an alt= tag? If you move the mouse over the image a yellow box will be displayed. If it does, are keywords in the description? Help make you 508 compliant.
- Does your website have a robots.txt file? You can determine by typing /robots.txt after the .com address. This is used to control what the search engines can and cannot see.
- If getting to your business location is important, do you have a map with driving directions? Ideal directions page will use Google Dynamic Map with predefined links to Google Map, MapQuest and GPS Latitude and Longitude coordinates.
- Page heading should be using Header 1 <h1>and Header 2 <h2> tags with keywords in the tags. The search engines give greater important to these tags over plain text.
- Does your website have animated images or scrolling banners? Get rid of them ASAP.
- Do you have a sitemap.xml file associated with your website and is it referenced in your robots.txt file?
- Does any link to external website leave your website? Link should open another browser window so they don’t leave your website. Requires target=”_blank” added to the external link.
- Do you have footer with copyright and contact information (phone, address, email, county)?
- Do you have galley type page with images, when you click on the image it goes to separate page? Can you get back to the website without clicking on back button? Does it have a link back to the website? Consider Java code that displays the image over the existing page so you are not leaving the page and it has its own close option.
- Does your website have multiple page formats, colors, fonts throughout the website? Should be no more than 3 contrasting colors, and one font type (use BOLD and italic to highlight).
- Overall width of website should be around 700 to 950, centered with contrasting background color to highlight the page.
- Add an “apple-touch-icon.png” file to your website so your website has Icon on their iPhone.
- Are you 508 compliant, go to http://www.contentquality.com/ and see if you pass the tests.
- Add a routine to your website so a .kmz file is generated to highlight your location using Google Earth.
- Publish newsletters and upload to your website for future references and additional keyword indexing.
Other Considerations:
- Who owns the website name?
- Which Registrar is it registered with? (Network Solutions, Godaddy, Register.com, etc..)
- When does the website name expire?
- Is the email address setup at the registrar current?