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For rollover/dropdown navigation, <noscript> tags MUST be used for search engines to spider the content. |
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The title tag is the single most important factor in optimizing your site for search engines; EVERY page of the site should have a unique, descriptive title tag; The article title must be generated dynamically. |
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Place the title tag right after the <head> tag. |
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Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element via ALT text attribute or LongDesc (long description tag) so search engines can read the keyword text |
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Keep your URLs as short and descriptive as possible - Example: http://www.csnews.com/tobacco vs. http://www.csnews.com/csn/cat_management/tobacco/index.jsp. |
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Don't use graphics for page headers or navigation elements. |
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Link internally between pages so spiders can index all pages of your site. |
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Use text links that contain descriptive keywords you are hoping to compete for. Search engines analyze the text within links to help determine a site's relevancy. |
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Descriptively name your directory folders and files - search engines will read these and rank for relevancy. |
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Avoid absolute font sizes. Use heading tags (e.g., the H1, H2, and H3 commands in HTML), as opposed to font tags. Heading tags work well for readability and tend to yield better search engine results. You only need one <H1> tag on the page, and it should be at or near the top. Sub-headings should be done with <H2>. Sub-sub-headings are <H3> and so on. Each heading sits above, and introduces, the next paragraph or two of content. Warning: If you use H1 on all of your text, you will get hit for spamming. If you use H3 prior to an H1 you run the risk of your site not working for some people. See Worksheet 3 for font conversion table. |
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ALWAYS use permanent redirects (301) when creating redirects. |
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Don't use frames - confuses users and search engines. |
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Add title and description (metadata) to a PDF file using the PDF Document Information fields. This will enable the search engine to display the Article Title on a list of search results, rather than the filename. |
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Optimize webpage size. Response time (time from when a user requests a page and when it has displayed completely) must be within 0.1 seconds to feel interactive (immediate response); Must be less than 1 second in order to fit into the user's chain of thought; Must be less than 10 seconds to keep users attention (otherwise the user will bail). |
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Inform users if browser or feature plugins are required. |
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Make sure pages are usable without scripts and applets. |
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Content should be accessible with CSS switched off or not supported. |
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Is all information that is conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. |
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Roy Zornow
MS Word version 
