These tips are intended solely for programming developers and not copywriters, site architects or graphic designers. We will be releasing SEO tips to help guide those individuals in future posts. If you are looking for some good e-commerce tips you can read Ian Lurie’s post 24 E-commerce development tips.

Here we go…

1. Make sure every page within a website possesses the functionality for customized page titles and meta descriptions or at the very least (for larger sites) the ability to assign unique business rules to these fields.
2. Each page should contain at least a single H1 header and if plausible, corresponding H2, H3, etc… headers as well. There should only be a single H1 per page which acts as the “title” for that page. The corresponding H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 tags should be used to identify related sub-pages. Linking to the sub-pages via the headers is recommended.
3. Images on the website should possess a customizable alt tag field especially if that image is being linked to another page. As any developer knows, the alt tag field is used to describe what an image is depicting but it also acts as the anchor text (of sorts) for hyperlinked images so consult with whoever is responsible for optimizing the site to ensure the alt tags are search term enriched.
4. Choose a primary domain and apply 301 redirects (a permanent redirect) to all other domains and point them to the primary domain. 302 redirects (a temporary redirect) will not pass along any search engine value nor will any other type of redirect.
5. For redesigns or overhauls apply 301 redirects for every moved sub page to tell search engines that “this page has permanently moved here”. When redirecting sub pages make sure to point them to their replacement page and not the homepage. The only time you want to point a sub page to the homepage is when it no longer exists.
6. Each page should be named after the targeted search term assigned to represent it (or at least a portion of the term) and should be displayed that way within the URL.
7. URL’s should be structured in a way where there are multiple tiers. Websites with depth are seen by search engines as more relevant (if they are properly optimized) because it shows them that there is a wealth of supporting content on a particular subject matter.
8. The website should possess an auto-populated site map that is less than 150 links and is linked to from every page on the site. If there is a need to represent more than 150 links simply create a second site map page or as many pages needed to encompass the entire site. A quick note, larger sites with a lot of authority (link juice) and history can get away with simply linking to the high level landing pages.
9. Reference CSS and JavaScript code through an include file. This will lower the page size, move the relevant body copy further up the page and lessen the chances of search engine spiders receiving an error.
10. Create a customized 404-Error page that closely resembles the site map.
11. Every page should posses a single dedicated URL no matter how many different ways there are to navigate to the page or how many places the page appears.
12. Ensure that there are not any broken links within the site.
13. Assign the nofollow attribute to links that point to “irrelevant” pages like the privacy policy, terms of use, etc… You may want to consult with whoever is responsible for optimizing the site.
14. Create a robots.txt file and block search engine spiders from indexing pages not meant to be visible in search results such as the shopping cart. THIS ALSO INCLUDES STAGING SITES.
15. Do not use iFrames to display any information meant to be spidered and indexed by search engines.
16. For all of you dot net nukers, reduce your Viewstate code.
17. Place analytical script just above the closing body tag.
18. Direct users to a “thank you” page after they perform a conversion on the site.
19. Hook up separate RSS feeds for press releases, blog posts, articles, etc… Basically any content that can and should be syndicated.
20. Create xml feeds for sites that sell products, real estate or anything that can be uploaded to Google’s Merchant Center and related portals.

Obviously there’s more so what’s missing? Share additional SEO development tips below.

The folks over at tmmpdx.com were kind enough to interview me about SearchFest 2010. Hope we see you there!

TMMPDX.COM’s SearchFest Preview: Q&A with Ben Lloyd, SEMpdx President

SEMpdx President, Ben Lloyd, took some time out for a Q&A with TMMPDX to talk about SearchFest and give us a preview of the upcoming conference happening March 9, 1010 at the Governer Hotel

If you have an RSS feed, you should (if you haven’t already) go set up a Feedburner account and burn that feed. What does Feedburner do, exactly? Well, simply put, it dresses up your RSS feed, gives you greater control over the look and feel and gives you the ability to set-up email subscriptions. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Here are some quick tips on how to optimize your Feedburner feed:

1. Make it compatible to any feed reader. If it’s not activated, you should browse to the Optimize tab and activate the SmartFeed option.
2. Give your readers the tools to share your content easily. You can include options to allow the reader of your feed content to email it to others, email the author, share it on Facebook and more. To look at all of the built-in options, navigate to the Optimize tab and then to FeedFlare.
3. Allow readers to subscribe to your content via an email subscription. Not everyone “gets” what an RSS feed is (or what the heck to do with it!). In this case, giving those users the option to subscribe to your content via an email that automatically gets sent out whenever you publish new content is preferable. You can even enable options to customize the email address that sends out the emails, the font and color of the email text and more. To see all of the options available for email, click on over to the Publicize tab then Email Subscriptions.
4. Make sure your feed is branded! When someone is searching for feeds to subscribe to, make sure yours stands out with your company or blog logo. To add a logo to your feed, you can go to the Optimize tab then select the drop down menu option “Specify custom image URL” in the Feed Image Burner section.

With some quick changes here and there, you can truly make your Feedburner feed stand out above all others!

I’m speaking at the PSU Digital Marketing Breakfast at PSU on Tuesday February 16 2010 .

From the PSU site:

“This breakfast is part of a quarterly discussion of digital marketing with industry professionals, moderated this time by the Portland search engine marketing association, SEMpdx.”

Our panel should be really great. There’s several folks from the SEMpdx board speaking about Universal Search (see my earlier post “SEO Tips for Universal Search“) + we’ll have analytics expert Aaron Gray on hand. We’ll each be presenting a few key points and then taking Q&A.

The session is totally free. Just register. Here’s a link for more information on the PSU Digital Marketing Breakfast at PSU. Hope to see you there!

Stumbled across this great article talking about some facts and trends about search usage, online marketing and social media behavior in 2009 for individuals in the U.S. Some of the more interesting facts:

“The U.S. core search market grew 16 percent in 2009, driven by a 6-percent gain in unique searchers and a 10-percent gain in search queries per searcher. Google and Bing led among the core search engines in terms of increases in market share.”

The 10% gain in search queries per searcher is interesting: are people not finding what they want and need to refine their search or are they just using search engines more?

“Social networking continued to gain momentum in 2009 with nearly 4 out of 5 Internet users visiting a social networking site on a monthly basis and Facebook and Twitter propelling much of the growth in the category.”

This comes as no surprise, especially specifically highlighting Facebook and Twitter as the two major social networking traffic drivers.

I’m thinking we’ll only see these trends continue in 2010.