Code that unhelpful to users

Because users surf the internet in so many different ways now their behavioural patterns need to be taken into account. To this end one of the biggest mistakes made by programmers can be in how they set up images

Using the alt tag

The alt tag is an alternative description that will be displayed should the image not load. It also suggests to search engines (although they rarely trust this on its own) what the image is.

Now because people are becoming more mobile in the way they access the net they are also seeing things over slower broadbands. A city centre WiFi system, for example, might only allow 256kb/s. Some mobile providers also charge by the 100kb of data transfer.

To counter this users will switch off the graphics. They will purposefully ask the browser not to download any graphics from your website. So now imagine what your site would look like without them ... ?

With graphics used as links the alt tag is even more important or users with their graphics turned off will not be able to navigate your website sensibly and they will leave.

So add an alt tag to every single image and help users who do not want to wait all day for your graphics. Then, in whatever browser you use, switch of image loading and see how easy it is to get around your website.

Using the width and height attribute with images

There are three very important reasons for doing this

• Your page will not 'jump around' as it loads because you are relying on graphics to hold the content in place
• Your page will display correctly even if a graphic fails to load
• Your page will display correclty for users who have set their browsers not to download graphics

Code unhelpful to search engines

We have covered why alt tags in images are important to users but search engines also pay them some attention, especially where the graphic is a link.

There are also other specific actions you can take to help the search engines understand, and therefore index, your pages better.

Use heading tags

Search engines place a great deal of importance on your heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc). If your website were a book, each page is a chapter which means each H1 is a chapter title and each H2 is a chapter subtitle.

Take the example of a website called 'http://looking-after-your-bicycle.com' then the domain name is similar to the title of a book. The page 'http://looking-after-your-bicycle.com/repairing-a-puncture.htm' is the chapter Repairing a puncture and to confirm it there should be an H1 tag on the page. This would be something like: <h1>Repairing a puncture<h1>

The first subsection on the page is 'Tools you will need' so it should be in the code as <h2>Tools you will need<h2>

Each heading should have a reasonable amount of text under it or you could be accussed of trying to scam search engines because you know heading tags are important.

So now a robot crawling your site can make sense of your structure and understand the website is about bicycles but this page is about punctures in bicycles and that section is about tools for punctures in bicycles.

Note the structure. You don't have to say <h2>Tools you will need to repair a puncture on a bicycle<h2> because the robot has already worked this out thanks to your lovely clear structure. You can also make it go pear-shaped and not benefit yourself at all by using titles that don't follow this logic so think of sensible, logical divides that make sense to users and robots.

Javascript menus

These drop down menus were all the fashion some years ago and many let them linger on their websites. But the content of these can be totally invisible to search engines.

To check if yours is go to your website, right-hand-click and choose 'View Source' (or a similar worded option depending on your browser) and look for your menu items. If you can't see them there then neither can the search engines and some of your most important links and keywords and going to waste.

There have been developments in Javascript and CSS which means this does not need to be so. You can keep your drop down menu and let search engines see it with the right programming.

So Javascript is not evil by default when it comes to search engine optimisation, but it must be used with care.

Flash content

Some people build their whole website in Flash and then wonder why they can't get indexed. Search engines simply can't see it so there is nothing to index.

If you really want to build a website, or even part of a site, in Flash then always make sure that there is an HTML option available. This is not only for search engines but also for users who have their Flash disabled - many do to avoid the annoying banners that plague the web!

Poor spelling and grammar

Just like Microsoft Word or other text editors, search engines can pick up poor spelling and grammar. Given the choice search engines will rank well written pages above those which are obviously in someone's second language.

So, for example, if your native language is not English you would be well advised to hire a qualified person to edit your content once it is complete.

Non-descriptive anchor text

Anchor texts are the words used in links within your website and might include something like 'more details' next to a product.

The problem is if you have a lot of products then 'more details' will be repeated numerous times across the website, each time as a link. Search engines will then begin to conclude that the words 'more details' are key to your pages and more important than the actual keywords or phrases that you want to focus on.

To resolve this all links that are not descriptive should either be edited or changed to a graphic link with an appropriate ALT tag.