Be Found: Designing Findable Web Sites
Get your sites ranked with the best

How to design findable web sites and get ranked with the best

The basics: understanding search engines and spiders

Index or directory?

Setting the right keywords

Using robot protocols to prevent unwanted indexing

Use core HTML tags more efficiently

Optimizing tricks to avoid

Getting dynamic web pages indexed

The problem of unreadable content

The commercial options for SEO

Using htaccess for efficient redirection

The final word on SEO

Learn how to get your sites ranked with the best

It's all too easy for your Web site to disappear into the black hole that is the Internet, beyond the reaches of even the most diligent searchers. Here's how to make sure your sites get seen.

Search engines are what keep the ever-growing Web navigable. Without these tools we'd all be hopelessly lost, unable to find almost anything of any use. So how do you get your site - whether it is the huge, commercial production you've just landed for your biggest client or your own personal site - into the search engine indexes so people around the world can find your pages?

In this article we'll tell you how to get your Web sites into search engines and directories. The process isn't rocket science, but it isn't exactly easy, either. Just waiting for it to happen without trying any fine-tuning isn't likely to work particularly well, as there are staggering numbers of Web pages being uploaded and updated around the world every day. Sites that aren't well optimised for search engines will rarely do well no matter much effort you make, and those that try to cheat the search engines' indexing and ranking system in some way are more likely to end up blacklisted than anything else.

Fortunately, making search engine-friendly sites isn't particularly difficult. It's generally best tackled right at the start of the site design process, but the techniques can also be applied to existing sites with a fair degree of success.

Looking for tips on searching more effectively instead? Read the Search Secrets pages.