This is the fourth article of
3: People had to be able to find my web site relatively easily.
The most important factor in designing a web-site with the top of search engine results in mind is the structure of the web site. The structure includes two distinct parts, layout and semantic tags. I desperately wanted a three column layout, so the visitor to my web site can see more links in the side bars. About three years ago three column layouts were all the rage in the web master community with many articles and demos about the subject on the internet. But doing a three column layout offers no advantage in search engine optimization. In order to gain maximum advantage over competition web sites mine had to have a special kind of layout called source ordered three column layout. It means that by using a CSS2* trick the search engines would read the content area first, then the right column and the left column and the banner comes last. You can see this in action here, “http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:http://www.lasvegas4us.com/&hl=en&rls=TSHB,TSHB:2006-51,TSHB:en&strip=1”
As compared to a web site which I subscribe to in order to use their IDX. Presently I am trying to work in their links to my web site.
Search engine bots read web sites left to right and top to bottom. The most value is put on the page titles and description. Additionally, importance is placed on the top paragraphs rather than those positioned on the bottom of the page, and in the second example the search engine sees (contact info, few phone numbers and imageimage) gibberish. As it comes to search engines there is no comparison. Using semantic tags is of utmost importance too, everything on a page that is not using semantic tags is read as a paragraph. In that case the title of the page is given the same importance as any paragraph. Not good. The layout of my web site is one of the most advanced layouts in use today, especially since I use a drop down menu on top. Designing this layout took more than 700-800 hours.
Wording a web site with both the user and search engine in mind is no small task and takes a long time. I hope that I have done well in that regard.
4: It had to be aesthetically pleasing; the rule of thumb is that web page readers decide to stay with a web site in under six seconds.
To satisfy this criterion I used CSS2, a powerful formatting tool which I used to make my web site aesthetically pleasing, and one of the biggest compliments I have ever had about my web site was from a dear lady who called it an eye catcher.
5: The web site had to be easy to navigate and all the information in the web site should be reachable within three clicks if possible.
This was easy also as function follows form. I divided pages in to sub-categories and used hyperlinks on top of every page to point to them for the ease of navigation. Much of the information in my web site can be reached by clicking the relevant links about three times or less.
Publishing a web site is like planting a seed, a planted seed has to be fed and watered and protected from disease. Web sites have their own needs. In order for a web site to climb in the search engine results back links are essential. In my case, I registered my site in a few real estate directories and started blogging. Blogs are the best way to obtain back links and each of my blog posts gain an average of 5-6 back links for my site. Back links are the main reason I started blogging, however it is starting to grow on me over time.
OK, that was a lot of writing about my web site, show me the money now!
Fine, I’ll write about what happened since I have published my site about 65 days ago in the next and concluding blog post.
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1 How are my Las Vegas real estate web-site, Las Vegas homes, condos land and commercial real estate and its companion blog performing in Google search results pages? Rocketing to the top!! // Dec 7, 2007 at 4:54 pm
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