SEO (15) Tables in HTML code

Tables in HTML code

Tables are used in webpage construction to make the layout more organized. Some web developers may use tables within table to simplify the webpage structure for maintenance purposes. This adds a lot of irrelevant text decreasing the keyword density in the “Above the Fold” region of the webpage. Most web pages have menu bar on the left hand side or the top of the web page. Having the menu bar positioned in such a way may decrease the density of keywords in the “Above the Fold” region.

Few alternatives to these issues are:

1. Position the menu bar on the right side of the web page and keyword sensitive content on the the left side

2. Use CSS stylesheet to define individual tag specifics. This CSS code must be placed in a separate file

e.g. <td id="centerLcolumn">My Text</td>

instead of <td width="100" height="400" bgcolor="#000000" bordercolor="#CCCCCC"> My Text</td>

Sitemap

A site map is a web page with links to every webpage within the web site. This web page has high importance in the website. Once the sitemap gets spidered by a search engine, one can be sure that every page on the website has been indexed. When designing the sitemap of a website, key points to remember are:

1. The sitemap should contain HTML anchor tags

2. The link text should consist of keywords relevant to the destination webpage. The link text may contain identical phrase as the TITLE tag of the destination webpage. The link text is significant since it states what the content of the destination page may be. Link text is taken into consideration by the relevancy algorithm of search engines.

3. The sitemap should be visible to the search engine. This means that there must be a link from the every page of the website (typically in the footer) to the sitemap and spiders must be permitted to index the sitemap

A typical link on a sitemap may be modeled on the following example Gallery

Avoid the following:\

1. JavaScript handlers in anchor tag

<a href="#" onclick="gotoURL(gallery)">Gallery</a>

2. Flash movie for sitemap

3. Images instead of link text

<a href="http://mysite.com/gallery.htm><img alt="Gallery" src="gallery.gif" /></a>

4. Imagemap

5. Irrelevant link text

<a href="http://mysite.com/gallery.htm">Check this out</a>

If the sitemap has more than 100 links, split the sitemap into multiple pages. A guide to creating sitemaps is provided by Google and is available at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html. It is advisable to read these guidelines and follow them while creating the sitemap.

source:SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION AND MARKETING by Binoy Varghese page 31-33

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