Search Engine Marketing Tips - Site Architecture

* Most comments by Shari Thurow, Webmaster and Marketing Director of GrantasticDesigns.com

As defined by Thurow, server side includes are a type of HTML comment that instructs your Web server to dynamically generate elements of a Web page before it sends the Web page to a browser or a search engine spider. SSI's can be used to put text elements on a page, such as text links, headers, footers, and content. As long as what is in the SSI file is search engine friendly, you won't have a problem with this in search engine marketing.

Common uses of JavaScript include mouseover/rollovers, drop down menus, pop-up menus, and sliding menus. JavaScript is not search engine friendly and not important to the engines and search engine marketing, so move it to a separate .js file.

Frames must be navigational within the frames. Include an option to use the site with or without frames. And, use JavaScript to keep frames intact.

Except Google, none of the engines can follow links in Flash sites. If you use Flash, include an option to view the site with or without the Flash. Rather than making the main page of your site in Flash, place a section of your site in Flash. Use only Flash movies, not Flash pages. Place the site in a frameset and use JavaScript to keep the frames intact. Flash, while nice, doesn't help in search engine marketing.

Splash pages often contain no text, a one-way link, and a redirect. Because the main page might be the only page indexed and often ranks higher than other pages, and because content is so important to the search engines and search engine marketing, stay away from splash pages.

Thurow stated that link popularity is measured by the number of links, the quality of links, the number of times end users click on links to your site, how long end users visit your site, and how often end users return to your site.

Orphaned pages can't get good popularity because very few links point to them. Also, orphaned pages have low click throughs, because they're typically advertising pages with no real content. Typical orphaned pages include pop-up windows, landing pages for banner ads, and landing pages for pay-per-click advertising. Try to avoid these pages in your search engine marketing campaign.