Website Optimization

Website optimization moves beyond basic web development and design. We define website optimization as the process by which a website is streamlined to become more efficient for three audiences: the website developer, the website reader and the search engine. Or to put it in question form: Does the website work? Is the website usable? Can the website be found?

To look at it another way, website optimization is made of five key elements: Validation, Speed, Usability, Structural SEO and Relational SEO. All five elements affect all three audiences. The onus in on the developer to optimize the site so that readers have a good experience and search engines can consume it easily.

Validation

A website that is broken is frustrating for readers and typically ignored by the search engines. Granted all websites are broken to some degree. It is difficult to maintain 100% HTML validation.  However some level of due diligence to website maintenance goes a long way. Laying a solid structural foundation for your website will serve you well in maintaining overall website optimization.

    • Is the website filled with errors?
      • HTML Validation – the code is current and up to standard.
      • CSS Validation – the CSS file is current, up to standard, and efficient.
      • Feed validation – are RSS feeds accessible and valid?

Check our recommended website validation resources.

Speed

Search engines are looking at how fast your site loads. Speed plays some factor in your rankings within the SERPs.

  • How fast do pages load?
    • do webpages load within 5 seconds?
    • image laden websites, though cool, slow a website down
    • table based websites are weightier than CSS based websites

Both Speed and Validation answer the question whether a website works.  Our Page Speed page suggests four tools you can use to assess page speed.

Usability

Ok, now that a website works, do readers find it usable? A web developer may be his or her own worse critic, but there no one more critical than a reader/user. Users make decisions about a website in a blink of an eye. It is almost an impossible standard. Taking time to focus on usability will take your website to the next level.

Consider the following:

  • navigation – does the website make it easy for users to get around?
  • content – is there real content that users want to read?
  • value – does the structure and content of website add value?

Structural SEO

You like it, your readers like it, can do the search engines like it? How should web pages be structured? Is the content of the website structured so that the search engines can easily discern the nature of each web page? Remember, SEO is not about websites but about web pages.

Structural SEO takes into consideration the HTML elements involved in producing a web page. These things include title tags, H1 tags, etc. In some circles this is most commonly called Onpage Optimization or Internal SEO.

Learn SEO

What is the best way to learn something? Do it yourself. The long way if possible. The problem most webmasters face is called “seo tool dependancy”. The truth: the big fancy SEO tool that is costing you good money is worthless to you unless you know how to do SEO yourself. Are SEO tools worhtless? No, of course not. But webmasters expect the tool to do all the work and then expect big results. Raise your hand if you ever did this? Take a peek at our recommended resources to Learn SEO.

Thees six core elements of website optimization will enable your site to maintain a high level of usability and searchability.

Remember to visit our other categories of recommended web tools.