Directory editors will actually review your site and be critical of issues that you might not be. Spiders must easily be able to navigate through your site to be able to index all of your pages.
When directories or spiders become confused or slowed because of design issues, your page becomes less relevant.
Site Structure:
Keep all of your important pages in
root directory.
Name pages after important keyword phrases (After you have researched your keywords).
Name directories after important keyword phrases.
Include a site map that includes links to all of your pages. Include a keyword rich description for each link that is relevant to
page you are linking to.
Create a customized 404 page that fits
design of your main pages and includes links to all of your important pages -- especially your home page.
Navigation:
Keep your navigation, to
right of your pages, in
middle or at
end of your pages. If you have your navigation on
left your page or at
top, this will be
first thing that a spider will see. You want your body text to appear to a spider before your navigation. Doing this will make your body text appear to be more relevant.
Navigation should be simple and easy to understand and hard to get lost within your site.
Heavily cross link all of your important pages.
Include a link to your home page on all of your pages.
When Creating Your Pages Always:
Make sure that your pages are compatible with all browsers 4.0 and above.
Create comfortable, appealing designs.
Be sure that your pages are neat, clean and organized.
Use high quality, optimized images.
Include a company logo.
Be sure that your pages are fast loading -- even on a 28.8k Pages should never exceed 75K
Include quality content within your site - Pages should contain from 200-1000 words. A good average is about 600 words.
Text should be easy to read.
Use text links as opposed to image links.
Make sure that there are no broken links in your site - monitor this regularly.
Include copyright information.
Include a contact page.
You May Want To Consider:
Using Cascading Style sheets. By using CSS, you are specifying certain factors such as font, color, paragraph style, ect. all in one place of your page instead of throughout your page. By doing this, you will make your content appear to be more prominent throughout your pages. Keep in mind that all CSS is not compatible with
Netscape browser.
Always Try To Avoid:
Splash intro or welcome pages. Your home page will be
most important page of your site and should include quality content.
Flash - A majority of major engines will not index flash sites. Editors may be critical of heavy or slow loading flash.
Frames - Most major engines can not read frames. If you must use frames, include important body text within a tag. Animated graphics - Slows load time and can be annoying to some visitors, editors and spiders.