SEO Optimization Tip - Valid HTML, XHTML

When optimizing websites for SEO, one of the things overlooked by most companies and web designers/developers is using valid HTML and XHTML.

Consider your website's code like handwriting. If someone had to had to scan over a lot of writing in a short time, there is a chance that they would not be able to absorb as much information from a paper will sloppy handwriting vs. a paper with neat and organized handwriting.

The same can be said for the crawlers that come visit your site. They have to go through possibly billions of pages, and chances are, they will not spend too much time on a page where they cannot decipher the content due to bad, unorganized coding. A page with clean, organized code is likely to be crawled from the header to the footer.

One place to check your site's code to make sure it is valid is using the free markup validation tool by W3C, pictured above. This site will give you warnings, errors, and suggested ways to correct the incorrect code in question.

Even if you are not able to immediately clean up the code throughout your site right away, at least take a look at the errors and learn proper coding for new pages.

5 Basic HTML Tags & Markups for SEO Optimization

Whenever you are designing your website, be sure to use these basic HTML tags & markups for SEO optimization.

Title Tag - Be sure to create a descriptive <title> tag for each page on your website. A good example of this would be Company Name | Description of this Page. Titles should be no more than 65 characters long.

Meta Tags - For each page, you can have a custom Meta Description, which is a 200 - 250 character summary of the content on the page, and Meta Keywords, which are the keywords for that page. Keep in mind you should not do any keyword stuffing, or placing tons of keywords that are not related to your content, in your meta tags.

Header Tags - Use header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.) on your pages. For example, the main page title could be placed in the <h1> tags, and then key points/dividers throughout your page could be placed within the <h2> and <h3> tags.

Formatting Tags - Highlighting keywords on your page using the <strong> tag will place emphasis on them when search engine crawlers are checking your site's content.

Alt Tags - Include alt tags for images on your website. A good description of your image within the alt tag could help it place well in the Google Image Search results. For example, if you have a dog grooming business, and you put a photograph of a freshly groomed Schnauzer on your website, a good alt tag would be "Miniature Schnauzer Haircut" rather than "Dog Grooming" or something else less specific.

Search Engine Optimization Vs. End User Optimization

In this video, Matt Cutts discusses the pros and cons of designing websites for search engine and for users.