Many of us use certain words to find information when searching on the Internet. These words are commonly referred to as keywords.

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1 The Seven Most Critical Website Design Elements Lenny Laskowski When designing a website for your business, it is critical to incorporate the elements that will allow search engines and directories to not only find you, but to help you reach a higher ranking. Here are the seven most critical elements that must be addressed: 1. Develop a Website Theme 2. Create a Separate Page for Each Product or Service 3. Use Keyword Phrases for Each Web Page 4. Include Text-based Links 5. Avoid Frames 6. Avoid Flash 7. Establish a Linking Strategy Before discussing these elements, let me first define some technical terms. Alt Text Tag: This is a special type of html tag which is placed within the HTML code and is associated with graphics (photos, diagrams, etc.). A visitor using an Internet browser that is slow because of the quantity of graphics on your website may elect to "turn off" the graphics on their browser to speed things up. In doing so, all the graphics do not appear. If you have alt text tags behind each of these pictures, they will see these instead of the graphics. Since search engines only see text, these are effective ways of adding information behind graphics on your website. Cookie: If you have a Web browser on your computer, you also have a cookie file. As you view a Web page, HTML code-the language of the Web-directs the browser on your computer to write a cookie in your cookie file, recording whatever data the server specifies. Subsequently, the Web server can read your browser's cookie file. Each website creates a separate file and can read only its own cookies; in other words, they can't read a cookie created by another website. Websites use cookies for several reasons. One is to gather targeted or personalized content, as in the example above. A cookie could also record the links or advertisements that you click on and add that information to a profile of your interests located in your cookie file. Cookies can remember your member ID and password so that you don't have to retype them every time you visit a membership website. Or a cookie can serve as a shopping cart for an electronic commerce website so that your browser remembers the items you wanted to purchase, even if you leave the website and return later. The point is to make the website more appealing to you, so you do come back again.

2 Dynamic Page: Dynamic pages allow you to display dynamic content on a Web page. This can be visitor specific information unique to each visitor. For example, it may say "Welcome Lenny Laskowski" as I visited the page. Flash: Flash, a Macromedia plug-in, is the standard for interactive vector graphics and animation for the Web. Web designers use Flash to create beautiful, resizable, and extremely compact navigation interfaces, technical illustrations, long-form animations, and other dazzling website effects. Frames: Some websites use a framed design. This is a design where the table of contents sits in its own frame, usually on the left side of a Web page. As one clicks on a specific link within the table of contents frame, the information frame on the right changes. The individual pages are "framed" within a separate window. Keywords: Many of us use certain words to find information when searching on the Internet. These words are commonly referred to as keywords. Meta Tags: These are optional HTML code lines that can be added to the HTML code of your website and are read by some search engines in order to identify the subject matter or content of the website. Ranking: When we search for information using our favorite search engine, we get a listing of Web pages and websites based on the specific keywords or keyword phrases we used. The listing of these pages is referred to as the ranking. Web Page: This is a single page of information. Many individuals and businesses are represented on the Internet through a single Web page. Website: Most businesses, mine included, have more than one page. In fact, my website has several hundred Web pages. A website contains several Web pages. If a business' presence only has one Web page, this is sometimes referred to as a website; however a website usually has more than one page.

3 The Seven Critical Elements Now let's look at the seven most critical elements that will allow search engines and directories to not only find you, but to help you reach a higher ranking. 1. Develop a Website Theme. Your website should have a theme based on your keyword phrases. Your keyword phrases are those phrases your potential clients will use when performing searches using their favorite search engine. These phrases must be incorporated in various parts of your website. For example, my website focuses on presentation skills and public speaking; therefore some keyword phrases I would use for my website would include: presentation skills presentation skills seminars public speaking seminars public speaking skills If your business provides information about your legal practice and you exclusively work with divorce cases, you might use the following keywords for you website: legal services divorce lawyer marriages Once you have decided on your list of keyword phrases it is important to incorporate these phrases within the text of your website. Each Web page may have its own set of unique keyword phrases. If your entire web site focuses on one area, you can use the same keyword phrases for each of your Web pages, but generally each page will provide some slightly unique information and you may want to consider creating keyword phrases for each page. If your website and business is involved in several unique areas it is critical that you have unique keyword phrases for each of your Web pages. 2. Create a Separate Web Page for Each Product or Service. If your business provides a variety of different products or services, I recommend that you create a separate Web page (or website) for each of these services. You can link these Web pages and web sites to each other to show that you offer other things, but keeping them separate will allow you optimize the individual website pages for the additional elements I will describe below. 3. Use Keyword Phrases for Each Web Page. It is important that keyword phrases are properly positioned within the HTML code of your website (or title bar). Here are the main considerations about using keyword phrases.... It is critical that these elements are provided as text and not as graphics. Search engines can only read text. They cannot read graphics.

4 ... Your keyword phrases should be located in your title statements, your meta tags, and your alt text tags (the actual visible text on the page and the name of your website links). Note that some search engines and directories do not look for all of these, but you need to include them for the search engines that do. Examples of the two most important meta tags are provided below. These are usually placed immediately after the title tag. <META name= "description" content= "a description of your page"> Depending on the search engine, this will be displayed along with the title of your page in an index. 'Content" could be a word, a sentence or even a paragraph to describe your page. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point. <META name= "keywords" content= "a, list, of, keywords"> Choose whatever keywords you think are appropriate, separated by commas. Remember to include synonyms, Americanisms and so on. For example, if you had a page on cars, you might want to include keywords such as car, cars, vehicles, automobiles. The number of times your keyword phrase appears on each page is important. The acceptable percentage of keywords in relation to your entire text should be between 3 percent and 10 percent for most search engines. Note that if your website provides only graphical text, a search engine cannot and will not see any text. Search engines only see straight text. You need to think about the actual text you provide on your website. The first 25 words on your website are most critical, but so are the last 25 words and the middle 25 words. Including your keyword phrases at various locations within each of your pages will pay off in higher rankings. Therefore, you should locate your keyword phrases near the top, middle, and the bottom of your websites. 4. Include Text-based Links. Your website should contain "text-based" links. Search engines cannot follow graphical-based links. If you do have graphical-based links, you should also include text -based links somewhere on the page. 5. Avoid Frames. They create all kinds of problems for search engines. Search engines find it difficult to navigate your website if it contains frames. While there are some options, such as the NOFRAMES option, most websites that rank higher do not contain frames. A framed website, which is converted to a non-framed website, will usually see a higher listing quickly after the frames are removed. 6. Avoid Flash or Dynamic Pages. There is a trend with many websites today to add all kinds of fancy flash movies and changing dynamic pages. While this may appeal to some visitors, search engines do not like them and you ruin your chances of search engines ranking your website well, since most search engines cannot deal with Java script and other special website design elements. If you have dynamic pages (pages that change or come back customized based on the cookies you set), these will also not list well. In fact, some search engines will not list any dynamic pages.

5 7. Establish a Linking Strategy. Many search engines determine the importance and relevancy of a website based on the number of "relative" links it contains. Exchange links with business associates who are pursuing the same types of customers you need and want. Establishing links with related websites and (even competitor's websites) can help increase traffic to your website and improve search engine rankings, some search engines look at this and determine the importance of a website based on the number of links it has added to the website. Lenny Laskowski is an international professional speaker and the author of the book, 10 Days to More Confident Public Speaking and several other publications. Lenny's products can be purchased "on-line" from this website at: Lenny is also available for hire to speak to your organization, college or association. Lenny also provides in-house seminars and workshops. Why not contact Lenny today for your next function or event. You can reach Lenny at or him at: Sales@LJLSeminars.com. You can also write to us at: 430 Freeman Avenue, Stratford, CT , USA.