SEO Tips for Developers

I am attempting to put a list of tips together for a client’s development staff. They have separate departments for content writing and marketing, so these tips are only in reference to coding.

I will update this as items are added or changed. So far:

1. Avoid Flash, but if you must use Flash, use SWF_Object() and have a text-only, keyword-centric and fully functional backup site loading behind it. This is only compliance, anyhow.

2. Use meaningful filenames such as “turtle-food.jpg” instead of “image1.jpg” for all files including graphics, sound, scripts, etc…

3. Use hyphens in filenames instead of underscores, i.e. “turtle-food.jpg” and not “turtle_food.jpg”. There is evidence to suggest that some search engine systems do not recognize anything besides the hyphen as a blank space consistently.

4. Use the meta description and meta keywords tags, and put them immediately after the page title, as high on the page as possible.

5. Get a list of keywords for EACH PAGE (you will need to work with marketing and whomever is writing the content to do this) and work them into the meta keywords and meta description tags as well as the page titles. Put keywords ahead of the company name in page titles, such as in: “Turtle Food Experts ¦ ACME Turtleworld!”

6. Try to use header tags where possible, around keywords. If using CSS, use CSS to define the size and characteristics of your header tags. (Important: Validate your CSS, just like you validate your HTML and you validate your XML on the site.)

7. Put bold or italics tags around keywords where possible (without making copy look look chintzy or forced), and name links using keywords. This tip is probably more for content writers or marketing, but developers should be aware of it because efforts to make a page optimized should include collaboration between groups.

8. Link internally, even if only to anchor text created specifically for this purpose, using keywords within the links.

9. Do not put text in graphics. Use text.

10. Use the ALT tag and combine ALT text with keywords (compliance)

11. Generate RSS feeds for pages with good content and syndicate them. Use something like Feedburner to syndicate your content

12. Be sure the site is compliant to coding and compliance standards (see aforementioned references to online tools that will help you).

13. Sites with private content should try to have public pages as well. The more public pages, the more opportunity to optimize a site.

14. Use robots.txt

15. Use a sitemap, ideally sitemap.xml (registered with Google and at the root of your site), but at the least a header/footer/menu that includes text links. There is an entire protocol for sitemaps, provided by Google, and it is definitely worth a look because if you play by Google’s rules, Google will like you more.

16. Be sure that WebTrends or similar program is installed on the server

17. If using a CMS, try to install a “search-engine-friendly URL” component or mod_rewrite for Apache, ISAPI Rewrite for IIS. For mod_rewrite, get ready to deal with some mind-bending stuff. Your best bet, in my opinion, is to search online for someone else’s code, borrow it, and adjust as necessary. There are lots of online discussion forums for this purpose. Be aware of the peculiarities that different content management systems have in regard to SEO. For instance, MOSS (SharePoint 2007) has unique SEO features as well as problems. Other content management systems are similar. Look into addressing any issues early.

18. Avoid using frames. If you must use frames, use <NOFRAMES> tags and have alternate HTML written.

19. Manually submit site to at least Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ (Support Open Source!!). Do not do this more than once. If you do, the search engine systems will not index you any quicker and may decide to just ignore you.

20. Try to ensure that at least some page content is static and keyword-relevant.

21. Make sure that links are not comprised of text such as “click here” but instead consist of keywords and keyword phrases. Shorter is not necessarily better. “Our Turtle Food Catalog is Available Online” works well as link text.

22. Put contextual links within the site. Alternatively, a “links” page can be used. I would much, much prefer to have contextual links within the site, however. A contextual link is a link that has something to do with the content it is embedded within.

23. Make a custom 404 page that looks good and links to the site’s main sections or (preferably) includes a sitemap. Have the custom 404 page do a meta refresh to the main page after a few seconds, and let browsers know “you will be directed to our main site in X seconds”

24. If the site is geared towards a specific geographic area, try to find hosting in that area

25. Use lowercase file names. It seems to matter to some search engine systems.

26. Follow the “First Letter Capital, Every Other Letter Lowercase” naming convention in links with keywords (where it isn’t painful or displeasing to do so). Again, there seems to be evidence that this matter to some search engine systems.

27. If you must do a redirect, always do a 301 redirect. Anything else will make the site suspicious to search engine systems or otherwise create problems for your site.

28. Try to stay current on the latest SEO-related trends and happenings. For instance, not long ago, Yahoo! got its search results from Google. Now it ranks sites quite differently than Google does. Where Google seems to put more emphasis on keyword prevalence and their proprietary, trademarked PageRank, Yahoo! seems to be more focused on the page-related issues, such as headers, etc.

29. Periodically scan your site for orphaned pages or dead links. Address whatever issues you discover.

30. Work with marketing or whomever is managing your link campaigns to establish what is working for you and what is not. Webtrends or other analytic software will help you contribute to the conversation. Again, SEO is not a job for one person, unless you hire a specialist to work full time. I should add here that it is not generally (or ever) a good idea for a small business to hire a full time SEO specialist. If your small business can afford to hire someone to sit around and do contract work while you are paying them a salary, great. Give me a call. I could use the health benefits. Seriously, the best approach is to have everyone in the organization who is on the team that produces web content and web pages to be informed and do their part. That way, your company owns the idea and practice of actively creating optimized content and you are not dependant upon any one person. A consultant can come in and give a fantastic day-long seminar on SEO and how it impacts your various departments. I am biased, but it only makes sense to bring in someone temporary in order to learn skills that everyone will benefit from and retain.

31. Put pieces of JavaScript code in an external file and refer to them with src attributes within your page

32. Use document.write to build things like JavaScript navigation menus and store the code in an external file. You can refer to the code that builds your top nav just like any other piece of JavaScript. The point of numbers 31 and 32 is that they reduce clutter and make your page as clean as possible. I am sure that you have seen pages with hundreds of lines of JavaScript code at the top, followed by a little bit of content. Spiders (‘bots) have to get through all this code before they get to the stuff worth indexing, and you want to prevent that. Bring your keywords and content to the top of the page and increase their prevalence.

33. Stick your CSS in an external file, too. Define your <H1> – <H6> tags there and use the header tags in your content.

34. Avoid pasting from MS Word. There is all kinds of stuff in there that you do not want, Word-specific stuff that will only make your page look goofy to search engines. This is a known issue and programs like FrontPage offer functionality to “clean” your Word documents. Expect to lose your formatting and bullet points.

MIT Technical is available for seminars and consulting in regard to Search Engine Optimization. Contact us for more information.

That’s all for now! Please feel free to leave comments or start a discussion on our discussion board. That is what it is there for, and you are guaranteed that you will get a response to your questions.

Josh Milane

MIT Technical, Boston

• 01.31.09 – Thought I should note, some of the above tips are no longer valid. Specifically, you really don’t want to mess with your CSS H1 tags. Each Google Dance brings new joy to the world, and SEO remains a “black art” – although the basics are valid, still.

• Interesting: Take a look at W3C Priority 1 Accessibility Requirements. Many of these map quite directly to good SEO practices. The interesting part is the reason why.