Basic Search Engine Optimization

I recently consulted a company that had created its entire website with heavy image usage. Images were used for the page titles, navigation and diagram details. One thing that our friends, the search engine bots, do not like is a page that is fat and empty and that is what you get when you over use images on any website.

After discussing the many methods of correcting this SEO no-no, we agreed on a method that would work for both aesthetics and SEO for the page titles. The method we used is called sIFR, or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement. With this technique we have a standards-compliant way to deliver rich typographical text in a flexible manner to over 90% of web users.

To explore this new alternative to browser text you can visit: http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/ and download the official release of sIFR.

After visiting the page title issue, we moved to the navigation problem. The current navigation menu was using images and javascript rollovers. We quickly agreed that this method was not the friendliest seo method to display a navigation menu and solved the problem using a CSS stylesheet and some simple classes.

Remember, when designing a website for search engine optimization, search engine robots cannot index text elements found inside an image. Always use your best judgment when trying to optimize a page and never attempt deceptive black-hat style SEO as it will ultimately lead to a complete search engine site removal.