Website Standards Association. Business Website Search Engine Optimization

1. FOREWORD...3 2. PURPOSE AND SCOPE...4 2.1. PURPOSE...4 2.2. SCOPE...4 2.3. DOCUMENT CONVENTIONS...4 2.4. PRIORITIES...4 2.5. DEFINITIONS...4 2.5.1. Cloaking...4 2.5.2. Doorway Pages...5 2.5.3. Link Farms...5 2.5.4. Link Popularity...5 2.5.5. W3C...5 2.5.6. White Hat...5 2.5.7. XML...5 3. OFF PAGE FACTORS...6 3.1. XML SITEMAP...6 3.2. LINKING...6 3.2.1. Use of no-follow...6 3.2.2. Link Farms...6 3.2.3. Directories...6 4. ON-PAGE FACTORS...6 4.1. CONTENT...6 4.1.1. Cloaking...6 4.1.2. Duplicate Content...6 4.1.3. Doorway Pages...7 4.1.4. Keyword Stuffing...7 4.2. NAVIGATION...7 4.2.1. Site Architecture...7 4.2.2. Sitemap...7 4.2.3. Parse-able code...7 4.2.4. TITLE Tags...7 4.2.5. Headings...8 4.2.6. META Description...8 4.2.7. Images...8 4.2.8. Frames...8 Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 2

Foreword 1. FOREWORD Website Standards Association is a group of IT and business professionals that aim to educate and inform Business Owners on the standards that their websites should meet in order to achieve tangible results. In recent times, Search Engine Optimization has become one of the most important areas of these website standards. Because most consumers use Search Engines to find what they want online, it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to optimize their websites so they appear in the search results for a particular query. This has opened up a whole new niche for Internet marketers and web developers to help their clients achieve results from their sites. However, the challenge with this emerging sector is that many Search Engine Optimizers and Business Owners are not sufficiently educated on the long-term effects of the optimizations techniques they are using. This set of Search Engine Optimization standards is aimed at ensuring that websites are created for users, yet structured in such a way that Search Engines can effectively index them. Businesses that want their websites to be well-placed on Search Engines need to adhere to these standards. Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 3

Purpose and Scope 2. PURPOSE AND SCOPE 2.1. Purpose The purpose of this document s standards and set of guidelines is to establish a framework for the creation of professional business websites that meet minimum criteria for best practice Search Engine Optimization techniques. 2.2. Scope The following is set of White Hat Search Engine Optimization standards and guidelines applicable for business websites. This document will not teach you how to optimize a site for Search Engines it will only detail the minimum criteria needed to ensure that a website can be effectively indexed by search engines. 2.3. Document Conventions The following editorial conventions are used throughout this document; Element names are in uppercase Attribute names are quoted in lowercase. 2.4. Priorities Each of the standards in this document is ranked with one of the following Priority Levels: [Priority 1]: Web developers must satisfy these requirements, otherwise it is unlikely that the website will be indexed by Search Engines. [Priority 2]: Web developers should satisfy these requirements, otherwise their ranking may be negatively effected. [Priority 3]: Web developers may satisfy these requirements, in order to enhance the likelihood of becoming ranked for certain phrases, and enhance any user experience. 2.5. Definitions 2.5.1. Cloaking The process by which a site displays different content under different circumstances. It is primarily used to show an optimized page to Search Engines and a different page to users. Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 4

Purpose and Scope 2.5.2. Doorway Pages Doorway pages are web pages that are created to rank high in Search Engine results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending the user to a different page. 2.5.3. Link Farms Sites created for the sole purpose of constructing links between member sites. 2.5.4. Link Popularity A measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to a site. 2.5.5. W3C World Wide Web Consortium, the governing body for web standards. 2.5.6. White Hat The ethical practice of Search Engine Optimization methodologies, that adhere to Search Engines quality guidelines and terms of service. 2.5.7. XML Short for Extensible Mark-up Language, XML is a very simple text format developed by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for the purpose of exchanging a wide variety of data on the web and elsewhere. Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 5

Off page factors 3. OFF PAGE FACTORS 3.1. XML Sitemap The website should have an XML sitemap, that is placed within the root directory of the server. [Priority 2] The sitemap should not exceed 10mb, or contain more than 50,000 URLs. [Priority 1] The location of the site map should also be referenced from within the robots.txt file. [Priority 2] 3.2. LINKING 3.2.1. Use of no-follow In the case where users can add links from your website to theirs (eg through comments on a blog), the no-follow attribute should be used to reduce the opportunity for spammers to link to themselves. [Priority 3] 3.2.2. Link Farms Do not participate in link exchange programs designed to increase your link popularity in the eyes of Search Engines. [Priority 2] 3.2.3. Directories Websites should only be added to directories that exercise editorial control.[priority 2] 4. ON-PAGE FACTORS 4.1. Content Content should always be created for people and not Search Engines. [Priority 2] It is however important that the content have certain considerations to ensure that the website is indexed according to its relevancy, including; (a) Important keywords should be placed within HTML text format, not within objects that cannot be read by spiders. (Eg: Images, Flash etc )[Priority 2] (b) Important words should be placed within headings, ALT tags and keywords. [Priority 2] 4.1.1. Cloaking Do not cloak web pages by showing one version of a page to crawlers and a different one to visitors. [Priority 1] 4.1.2. Duplicate Content Duplicate content within your site, and on other sites, should be avoided. In the case where it is necessary, such as pages for printing etc, use no-follow. [Priority 3] Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 6

On-page factors 4.1.3. Doorway Pages Do not create pages aimed at getting certain website traffic whose purpose is to redirect you with Meta refreshes or JavaScript re-directs to another page as soon as you get there. [Priority 1] 4.1.4. Keyword Stuffing Do not load a page with the repetitive keywords hidden in the meta-tags or out of view of visitors, including; [Priority 1] Colouring text the same colour as the background Placing text behind images or DIVs Absolute positioning text so that it is positioned far from the page centre. Including popular words in hidden copy that don t relate to the businesses website 4.2. Navigation Navigation although primarily designed for use by website visitors, need to be designed with Search Engine Optimization in mind. Following is a list of important considerations that need to be taken into account when designing website navigation. [Priority 3] Links should be made of text links. Navigation elements should not be created using JavaScript. Keywords describing the page that is being linked to should be used in the text link. 4.2.1. Site Architecture Organise the site into a logical hierarchy whereby related sections of the website are grouped together. [Priority 3] 4.2.2. Sitemap The sitemap is an important part of any website and should; [Priority 2] Contain a static text link to every page within the website. Be linked to from every page within the site. Contain no more than 100 links per page. 4.2.3. Parse-able code To ensure that HTML is able to be parsed by Search Engine Spiders without errors, it is recommended that the code be correctly validated by the W3C validator at validator.w3.org [Priority 3] 4.2.4. TITLE Tags Describing the page s content, the TITLE tags is one of the most important on a page. As such, important words should be placed in the title tag. [Priority 3] Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 7

On-page factors Words within this tag should not should not exceed 65 characters. [Priority 3] It is advisable to avoid targeting the same keywords on multiple pages. [Priority 3] 4.2.5. Headings The H1 tag should contain the most important keywords for a particular page. [Priority 3] 4.2.6. META Description The description should describe the page concisely and accurately in 155 170 characters. [Priority 3] 4.2.7. Images Use the ALT attribute to provide text that describes any images. Additionally, it is advisable to provide captions or descriptive text around images. [Priority 3] 4.2.8. Frames Do not use frames, as Search Engines find them hard to crawl. [Priority 2] Copyright 2008 Website Standards Association Page 8