jackylopez.com - Virtual Assistant and Web Development
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The document provides an overview of essential HTML and XML commands relevant for search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing. It emphasizes the importance of using valid HTML practices, such as proper tags and structure, to ensure website compliance with modern standards while optimizing for search engines. Key topics include the use of title and meta description tags, structured markup language, and the significance of link elements in improving website performance and SEO rankings.
jackylopez.com - Virtual Assistant and Web Development
- 1. HTML Essentials For SEO In this segment of your SEO Roadmap series we will review some of the basic HTMLand XML commands that you should be familiar with if you’re going to be involved in Search Engine Optimization or Internet Marketing. Now I understand that you maybe saying to yourself, I’ve been doing website development for some time and you’re not going to teach me anything new about HTML or SEO in this segment. Well that maybe true, but there are several important factors that we review in this video that even old pros do not fully understand or appreciate that will help in your on page search engine optimization and make sure that you’re compliant with the new roll out of HTML 5. We will get you up to speed by reviewing some of the different versions of HTML and XML so you can choose the version that is right for your project We will go over the structure, some of the major tags and features such as meta code, hyperlinks and URLS. This video is not a HTML course or a course on how to devolve your website, but a basic overview of some of the things you should be familiar with as you begin your journey to having a profitable online business. 1
- 2. HTML Essentials For Text Editors. As you will be working with HTML, XML and other computer code type of things you will want to be working with a text editor and not a word processor. So here is the difference a word processor has bold, columns, graphics along with allot of other stuff to format the text. It also embeds meta coding into the text and the code you would developing in a word processor so it will not work, instead you need to use a text editor, so here are a couple your choices. If you use a MAC consider using BBEdit. BBEdit has a bunch of features costs around $99.00 2
- 3. HTML Essentials For If you’re on a PC consider notepad++ Browsers My preference is using Firefox, as it is a safe, faster and fully customizable web browser and supports a large number of add on extensions such as the SEO quake and the SEO toolbar extensions. 3
- 4. HTML Essentials For And another tip, here is how you would review the source code and HTML code of other websites perhaps your competitors website so you could compare their HTML code to yours. In your browser go to the view tab, drop down to Page Source and a window should open showing the source code for that website. (Update: In Firefox 6 and above click on the page and a new window will open. Click on “View Page Source”) 4
- 5. HTML Essentials For What is HTML? HTML is Hypertext Markup Language, that was first developed in early 80’s and still today is the predominate markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, etc. as well or links, quotes and other items, It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. In the early days of HTML it was almost like a free for all and there was no standardization in HTML code. As an example Microsoft would create a new HTML element for their browsers that wasn’t supported in Netscape, and vise virsa. Today the World Wide Consortium maintains the specifications for HTML to make sure that all the code is supported across all platforms. Because of the limitations of HTML and the computer power that is required to render many HTML pages a new platform called XHTML was introduced 5
- 6. HTML Essentials For What is XHTML? XMTML is not actually extensible as it is still based on the HTML platform, but as it uses XML it is an extension of the XML language Think of XHTML as HTML but with stricter rules. The strictness of XHTML is good for computers and one of the elements that is taken into consideration when Google and the other search engines come to your website to review it for indexing into their website 6
- 7. HTML Essentials For Standard Compliant So how can you make sure that your HTML and XHTML is properly compliant and that it will render properly on your visitors computers and that the search engines will favor your website? Well two ways: One way is to use the W3C’s Markup Validation website at http://validator.w3.org The validator will check your webpages showing you any errors that you can then fix or have your web designer fix. Another way is to inspect your webpages using different browsers such as Explorer, Safari, Opera and don’t forget all those mobile devices. There are also web---based services such as BrowserShoots that can do this all for you. 7
- 8. HTML Essentials For Now lets jump right into discovering some of the basic HTML and XHTML coding that you should be familiar with in SEO and Internet marketing. Lets first look at the basic structure of a simple HTML page. You’ll notice in this first example, on the first line we use the doctype for declaration. This important, one like of code tells the browsers of your visitors how to render this page. According to HTML standards, all HTML documents require this document type declaration. As a reminder, you can go to your website and use the view source code command to make sure that this important code is the first line of code on your website. After the doc type declaration you then should have the HTML command in brackets and at the end of your document the closing HTML command with the slash mark that closes this command. All of your HTML commands should be formatted in this way with using the opening and then the closing tag with the slash mark. Between the opening and closing HTML commands you will also notice allot of other HTML commands, several of which we will discuss in this video as they relate to Search Engine Optimization. 8
- 9. HTML Essentials For The first is the opening head and the closing head tags. The Head area Within the head section you will want to make sure that you have the important HTML tags for SEO that include title tag and the meta description tag. Also included in the Head area and links to other important files on your website that would include CCS and Java scripts. 9
- 10. HTML Essentials For Title Tag: One of the most important elements of HTML and SEO is your title tag. Your title tag tells Google and your visitors what your webpage is all about and is displayed by Google and other search engines in their search result pages. Remember; use descriptive, informative and brief title tags, under 65 characters. Anything over this Google will truncate the title. 10
- 11. HTML Essentials For Meta Description Tag: Another important HTML meta tag is your meta description tag. Your meta description tag describes what your webpage is all about to the search engines and to your victors. Also remember to use descriptive, informative and brief meta description tags, under 155 characters, anything longer then this and again the search engines can truncate them. 11
- 12. HTML Essentials For Keywords: The Meta Keyword area for your webpage is also included in the head area. Even though the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing now ignore this tag entirely, I feel that it is still a good practice to include a few important keywords in this area just incase they ever change their mind. 12
- 13. HTML Essentials For Link Elements: Link elements define external files and resources on your website that would include java scripts and CSS coding. It is recommended that you use these external files to improve the speed of your website when it loads the page to maintain a good content to code ratio. This is very important factor in the Google Caffeine algorithm and one that will help you get better rankings for your website. 13
- 14. HTML Essentials For Base Path Area: Another element that will improve the page loading time of all your pages on your website while also improving your chances in getting your site to comply with the Google Caffeine requirements is to defining a base path for all your important files such as your java, css files. 14
- 15. HTML Essentials For Canonical Tag: If there is one thing Google hates in duplicate content, and if you’re using a CMS system that is not properly formatting its permalink structure you could be penalized. One way to become compliant is to use the Canonical tag to reference the preferred version of the URL for that document. Simply add the canonical Meta tag that directs the search engine with the URL to the end of the tag as we have in this example. 15
- 16. HTML Essentials For Recommend Tags: Here is a list of some of the recommended tags that you should consider using in your HTML that include: The Title Tag The Language of the content on the page The Content Type The Description And the Canonical Tag Some of the optional tags include the NO ODP tag. This tag is useful if Google or any of the search engines are using the description from the Open Source Directory and you want to change this. 16
- 17. HTML Essentials For These are several of the tags that are ignored by the search engines and have absolutely no value for SEO, they include: Script types Distributi on Expires Generator Publisher Following your head area we now come down to the Body area of your website. Here is where you will be putting the main content of your webpage that would include text, images, forms, videos and graphics 17
- 18. HTML Essentials For CSS: Today, most professional web designers do most of their text formatting with CSS, but HTML still remains the heart of the design process. Also avoid using java or flash in your body area because it is very 2004, the search engines have a very difficult time in indexing this type of content and many mobile devices like the iPhone cannot render this type of content. A tip, if you outsource your web development and they are still recommending flash over CSS, dump them and find someone else. 18
- 19. HTML Essentials For Formatting: In this example of HTML text we are using the paragraph and break tags to render the text on the right. You may had noticed that I did not include the trailing slash after the br tag in the previous slide and this would have shown an error if I would had validated the code using the W3 validator. 19
- 20. HTML Essentials For Because of XHTML strict guidelines it is always a good practice to include the trailing slash to close your tags In this example showing the Bold, Italics and Underline tags you will see in the right window that I am now using this closing slash, thus making my HTML compliant and helping me have this page rank better in the search engines as they tighten up their compliancy factors. 20
- 21. HTML Essentials For Using the proper formatting of your text in using bold, italics and underlines will also help in usability issues, making your page easier to read by your visitors, thus encouraging them to bookmark and sharing your content with their friends. Headlines Using headline tags properly are an important element of usability and SEO. When we use the headline tag we are telling both our visitors and the search engines that this segment of content is important for this page. So make sure that you use keywords in your H tags. Also try to avoid using more that one H1 tag on each page because if you do, you are diluting the importance of that tag. Wordpress and many other CMS systems by default make the title of your page a H1 tag, so in the body of your article you would want to avoid using the H1 tag again and instead use the H2 or H3 tags. Ordered and Unordered Lists are another good place to use keywords for your products or services 21
- 22. HTML Essentials For In this first example we are using the ordered list for a recipe for a deep---dish pizza and in this second example we are using an unordered list. At this point you maybe asking yourself, “Ok, why would making these other words relating to deep dish pizza be important” Well one reason, in on page search engine optimization Google is not only looking for your main keyword phrase, but other relevant keyword phrases specific to that main keyword. So in these to examples Google may see that these other keywords that we are using in an ordered or unordered list are important to our page on deep dish pizza and increase or on page focus and relevance for our topic. Proper use of the syntax and the image alt tag is also important in proper HTML and on page search engine optimization and is one of the most frequently overlooked factors in on page SEO. 22
- 23. HTML Essentials For Image Alt Tags By using the proper alt tags your vision impaired visitors will be able to read your content and the images using a screen reader and also allows your images to be indexed into Google’s image search, thus opening another doorway for visitors and traffic to your website. Hyperlinks and using the proper anchor text keywords is also a critical element of on page SEO 23
- 24. HTML Essentials For Relative vs. Absolute Links First off there are two different types of hyperlinks that you may use on your website, relative and absolute Relative links are hyperlinks that you can use that link to other pages on your website. They are shorter and don’t have the http://websitename attribute association. These type of links also make it easier and quicken the load time of pages that are on your website. Absolute links on the other hand do use the http://website name in the attribute and require a call out from your website to load the page. A good practice is to use absolute links in your footer links and your HTML sitemaps to encourage deep linking of your website by the search engines and to use relative links to speed up the load time in your main navigation menu for your visitors. 24
- 25. HTML Essentials For Anchor Tags It is also a good practice to use keywords in your hyperlinks, these are called anchor text links. These anchor text links tell your visitors and the search engines what the next page is all about. Also a couple tips: 1: Avoid using the anchor tag phrase click here as this phrase tells the search engines nothing about the next page 2: Also avoid the phrase “home page”. Use an anchor tag keyword phrase instead such as Chicago Pizza Home if the main focus of your website is Chicago Pizza. Congratulations in completing this video in your SEORoadmapseries about HTML. 25
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