SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

Y

ou may remember that back in Chapters 3 and 6 we covered some of

the HTML tags most commonly used in SEO. These included title tags,

heading tags, body tags, meta tags, and the alt tag. No web site should

be without those tags in the HTML that makes up the site. However, those

tags aren’t the only ones that you should know.

In addition, there are several others you might find useful. In fact, a basic

understanding of HTML is nearly essential for achieving the best SEO possi-

ble for your web site. Sure, you can build a web site using some kind of web

design software like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver. However,

those programs won’t necessarily ensure that all the essential HTML tags are

included in your site. It’s far better if you know enough HTML to understand

where your HTML tags go, and how to put them there without trashing the

design of the site.

There’s also another aspect to tagging your web site, and that’s using the right

strategies to ensure the tags are as effective as possible. For example, some

HTML tags are strictly for formatting (like the <bold>tag), but formatting a

word with <bold>doesn’t tell the search engine that the word is important.

Using a more appropriate HTML tag (like <strong>) works much better.

These are all elements of site tagging that you should know. And if you haven’t

taken steps to ensure that your site is tagged properly, do it now. Search engine

crawlers don’t read web sites or web pages. They read the text on those pages,

and HTML is a form of text. With the right HTML tags, you can tell a search

engine far more about your site than the content alone will tell it.

167

IN THIS CHAPTER

What’s So Important About Site Tagging? ..........................................................................

How Does Site Tagging Work? ..........................................................................................

Additional HTML tags

Creating SEO optimized

302 direct pages

Creating SEO optimized

404 error pages

Tagging Your Web Site

75002c11.qxd:Layout 1 11/7/07 9:40 AM Page 167