Drawing traffic from search engines is a vital part of promoting your website. Most online shoppers will turn to Google first when they are looking for products or services. Websites need to strike a balance between appealing to human visitors, and to search engine spiders. Basically, search engines "read" the content of your site, looking for keywords, and will rank sites higher which are richer in relevant phrases.

Making your website search engine friendly is not a difficult process. It may sound surprising, but often search engines like what people like, and actually when you think about it, this makes sense: a search engine is trying to find the best possible pages for the *human beings* doing the searching!

First of all, make sure you stick to "web safe" fonts, such as Arial, Courier or Times New Roman. Frilly scripts are difficult for people and search engines to read. 12 point black text is the easiest to read. The look of the text is not what you should want to draw attention to; the content is what both visitors and search engines are looking for.

Arrange your text nicely. Put in plenty of paragraph breaks, and use bullets and numbered lists where appropriate. Don't overuse emphasis such as capital letters or bold text. Make sure that you spell and punctuate correctly. Try to have at least 250 words per page, but not more than 750. I reiterate: search engines like sites that have lots of unique, relevant *content*. They are not interested in flashy graphics or animations, and you may be surprised to learn that generally speaking, nor are your customers. Flashing or scrolling text and incongruous animated GIFs look extremely amateurish, as if you've just got your hands on all these exciting options for the first time. What is more, search engines read them as nothing but blank space. Instead, make sure every page is rich in keywords which are relevant to your site. Any graphics you do have should have good alt tags and should be specifically targeted at giving your customer more information.

Don't spam the search engines. Adding too much content at once, adding meaningless pages of keywords, or putting hidden text in your html, will get you banned from many search engines including Google and Alta Vista. They are wise to this sort of behaviour and will penalise you for it. Instead, make sure you make good use of the meta tags – use keywords which tie in with the keywords you have used throughout your text. These aren't as important as they used to be, but every little helps.

The layout of your site is often overlooked when it comes to search engine optimisation, but it is very important. Make sure that there are no dead links on your site and that every page is linked back to your homepage and to major categories of pages. Bad navigation confuses search engines and annoys your visitors. A sitemap is a good idea if you have more than 20 pages – you could use a Google sitemap if your site is very large. Also, make sure that your navigation is clear: use text links, and label your navigation links sensibly.

Basically, as far as search engines are concerned, content is paramount. Make sure that you use the right keywords, combined with a well-designed site, and you will find your site climbing the rankings, and holding onto the customers who find you as well.

By Natalie Catchpole

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