I'm building my first website what should be mindful of a regards to seo?

I have never done any of before. I will be using Dreamweaver in the visual mode. I know it is better to hand code but, i have difficulty typing.I am looking for advice on things I should look for, and do or not do or pay attention to. Basically any tips would be appreciated.

 

My first tip would be - ignore most of the advice you get on forums. of course, I'm also telling you to ignore me then. But in all seriousness, be careful.

Start learning about SEO here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo

That way, you will avoid the outdated and snake oil advice that is sometimes given on forums.

The main piece of advice I would give is: make great content for humans. Do not over-optimise (for search engines).

You don't need to handcode, but I would recommend using a CMS rather than creating a static HTML site (in the end, it's easier to maintain). You can however do the design in DW first and then convert it to Drupal, Wordpress or whatever you choose. (You can always pay someone if you don't know how to.)

Good luck!

 

Hi there,

I agree with Ryan_uk above. Wordpress or joomla is a much better way to create a website - easier to maintain and easier to expand later if you want to. Also a lot easier to change the look of - you just change the theme (wordpress) or template (joomla).

As to SEO - the very first thing you need to find out are what your best keywords are. Use the google keyword tool for this. Then structure your site around those keywords, with a page for each important keyword.

Make sure the URLs, internal links, page titles, H1 tags, alt tags, and content all include these keywords.

Once you've set it all up, starting building links directly to those pages, using the chosen keywords.

seomoz is a great resource - use it!

 

Another good site actually for learning how to create your first website, including SEO tips, is www.netgooroo.com/course/

It goes through keyword research, setting up a wordpress site, optimizing it for SEO etc etc.

You have to sign up but it's free.

 

Today's SEO is focused on quality content.
http://bit.ly/107AOqh

 

Thank you to everyone for all of the information. It is going to take me a while to digest everything properly.Here’s what I know, and here is what is so troubling me.I know that I am going to use WordPress once everything is created.In general is it better to design the website first or write the content? I just want to make sure I am approaching things the right way so I do not get myself into a mess later.

 

Well, I would say the most important part of a website is content. It can influence so many things, including design. So, make some content (for example, even in a word-processor) and after that implement your design. Of course, visual appearance is not the only important thing, but also to check that the "structure" works well, there's no overlap, it's easy and logical to move through, etc.

I always find the best people to test a site on are friends and family who don't know anything about making websites, graphics, SEO, etc. They will give you a view as a visit, as your audience. It's the most valuable one you could have.

Good luck, mate.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking but I just wanted to be sure. I pretty much already know what the content and design are going to be. I do have one other question that is completely unrelated. how do you guys get spacing between paragraphs on this forum? Everything I type gets lumped together as one paragraph no matter what I try to do.

 

Everything in SEO is NOT about quality, it's about "naturalness" and diversity. If you put quality articles on the site, but the site looks over-optimized or unbalanced in the kind of backlinks it is getting, Google will likely not rank you, because it's looking for more natural-looking website creation and networking.

 

Some other people have mentioned similar problems. Which browser are you using? Does the same problem occur if you use shift and enter? Also, what language is your OS and browser in? (It can dictate character set, which could cause such behaviour.)

 

Thanks. I have heard of that is a good idea to link back and forth between pages on your website. Is this a good idea? Of course, I would imagine that this is something that needs to be done in moderation.

 

Sure, internal linking to relevant pages is good, helps to ensure all your content can be found and crawled. It's also good for humans. Don't worry too much, though. Don't think about optimising or you'll end up over-optimising, don't worry about Google/Bing too much. Instead, get friends and family to test your site, make sure it's usable, easy to browse, etc.

 

I agree with ryan_uk. The more natural the content is, the better it's receive by the search engine crawlers. Make sure that it's as original as possible.

Also Remember this:

-The TITLE and DESCRIPTION meta tags are the main ones you want to optimize with your keywords.

-Each page you create on your web site should be named according to what it is. For example: If the web page is about repairing blue widgets,the filename should be, "blue-widget-repair-service" and the TITLE of the page should be something like, "Blue Widget Repairs | Blue Widget Repair Services".

-Make sure you don't over stuff the page copy or content with your keyword(s). You want everything on the page to flow smoothly and easy for the reader to take it all in. If your page has images or graphics in the along with the copy of the page, make sure the copy and the images are relevant to each other.

-Name the images you use on each page with keywords that go along with the topic of that page.

Trust me, there is waaaaay more to SEO, but these things right here should really help. :-0)

 

Focus on what is on-page and off page SEO techniques.

 

First concentrate on building an error free (html validated) site W3.ORG . Then look at working on the following points.

* Relevant & Unique Page Titles
* Relevant & Unique Description Fields.
* add alt attributes on all your images.
* add title attributes to your links.
* check your keyword density on each page and make sure that the content is keyword rich.
* validate it using an SEO checker.

 

Thank you to everyone for the info. Now I have a question that is a little bit off-topic. How do a center of the logo, menubar and text? I want to do this so that I can set up a gradient background on the left and right side of the webpage.

 

Use CSS. Here are some examples:
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/center.en.html
http://designshack.net/articles/css/how-to-center-anything-with-css/

 

Keep in mind the below points.

1. Best use of Alter tag on pics on your website's pages.
2. Using header tags in content.
3. website urls must be start with www.
4. Your website's home page url and Inner page urls must matching with your targeted keywords for a particular page. i.e. website design page have a url like. /website-design.php
5. Content must be high quality and unique. Must be made using keywords.
6. You must follow the penguin rules for On page on a particular website.

 

I think I have followed the directions correctly but I am still having difficulty. When anyone mind taking a look at the little bit of code I have attached?I don't want to hijack this thread so, after this post I will keep everything on track.

 

Don't underestimate the forums. There are still a lot of legitimate people who are on such platforms offering incredible services!
As far as SEO learning is concerned, it's fine but still an expert or someone who's experienced so many things in SEO can be a good asset.

Let me tell you my story!

One of my clients learned SEO from seomoz and other sources and started doing it himself. Then he came to me telling that his website is hit. After some analysis i found out that he was having a duplicate content issue. He just 301 redirected his website to 2 different domains and some of the pages were still in Google. He didn't change the content and that caused him a penalty. Though, he was good learner from seomoz but still not expert. So i just realized that learning and experiencing are 2 different things. Learners are good but those who have practically experienced it are far better than others.

Hope you take my opinion positively.