Search Engine Optimization
The Seven Secret Skills of SEO Work
Skill 5 - Eye for Detail
The next skill is an eye for detail. Even a simple change to a web page can create an error that means the spiderbots will not crawl your site. Recently, I put a link to a page that didn't have www. at the front of the address. Although the link still worked the spiders stopped crawling, and it took my partner to find the error. So eye for detail is absolutely crucial for search engine optimization.We have recently bought a very sophisticated html validator that picks up errors that other validators just fail to see. These errors do not stop the pages displaying correctly to the human eye, but cause massive problems with spiderbots. Almost all the code that I look at on the web using this validator flags major errors, even from SEO companies.
The HTML Validation Tool page offers a 14-day free trial of a good version of the validator we use (http://www.seo-gurus.co.uk/csesetup.exe) , together with a free web based validator. We strongly suggest that error free code is an absolute must if you want all your pages to be listed on the first page results. The exceptions to this rule, are sites that because of their popularity, longevity or page status have gained exceptional kudos and hence still can feature on the front results page even with HTML errors.
Also remember that WYSIWYG editors add lots of additional code to your web pages. If you have the skills, we recommend that you try and reduce this wherever possible. One of the reasons that we do not touch our customers' web sites is that we cannot guarantee the code. Even if we clean it thoroughly, the next update done by the customer can add new errors. It is easier for us to host clean web pages that show up well and point to the actual customer's site.
Go to the next part of SEO Skills - Patience
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