The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world is full of do this and do that. Almost everywhere you turn you can find an article that discusses the latest “search engine trick”. These are typically tricks that are geared to tricking a search engines algorithm. This is often called “black hat” SEO. It was quite common, and often worked in the late 1990’s. However, the search engines have gotten a lot smarter, and now those techniques can penalize your Web site, or even get it banned. In the present day, some black hat techniques will give a site a temporary bump, but the search engines find them and quickly penalize them.  Don’t waste your time on this stuff. Instead of spending your time trying to outsmart the search engines, INVEST your time in making your Web site “search engine friendly”.  If you focus on making your page search engine friendly you will enjoy long term gains in your search engine results.

What is the easiest and most often overlooked search engine optimization technique?

The answer is easy, be spider friendly. It is amazing how simple and easy it is to be spider friendly, and yet so many web pages don’t even address this item.

How To Be Spider Friendly

What does spider friendly mean? It means using valid HTML code and making sure that your web site does not have broken links. In addition, Flash and Javascript menus are famous for choking a search engine’s spider. If you use these, evaluate your web site and see if you can utilize other technologies to achieve the same effect. Odds are, that you will have several options.

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Is your flash driven site really a necessity? Ask yourself, which is more important, the animated flash navigation with cool swish sound effect  or higher search engine rankings?. If the cool swish sound effect is the main key to converting visitors into paying customers, then keep it. However, if it is just there for show, CHUCK IT and don’t ever look back! Don’t focus on how much the developer charged you for it, focus on how much it is costing you today in lost opportunities.

But I love my navigation buttons!

As a rule, use images to enhance your Web site, not to provide copy or content. The only thing that search engine spiders can digest is text; therefore use as much text as possible. If you are using images for your navigation buttons, then the spiders are not indexing your web site to its full potential. Hire a good web designer that is proficient in CSS and get rid of your graphical navigation. You will be surprises how a good CSS programmer can mimic graphics. In a nutshell, keep your web site simple.

If you are researching ways to improve your search engine rankings, then start with this 1 easy step. This one change to your Web site will have a huge impact. Once you have made your Web site search engine friendly, then and only then focus on other optimizing techniques.