How to Use Headers For Search Engine Optimization
Search engines use your headers to tell about your document. They can tell such things as:
- What HTML Specs you adhere to
- What language your document is in
- What character set your document uses
- Your keywords
- Your Title
- Your Description
- If your document is safe for children
- What the Icon should look like if you bookmark it
- if spiders should search your site or not
- The locations of Javascript and CSS files
- and much more
Most web sites do not have the required header information and are thus ignored by some search engines. It is such an easy thing to do, you would think everyone would properly use headers. Here is an example of the header information that we use for our own sites:
Here is what the different parts of the header are used for:
- DOCTYPE - the doctype tells browsers what rules to follow. We like to use HTML 4.01 Transitional, but there are other rulesets.
- HTML tag ( START ) - This notifies the browsers that the following information is HTML code.
- HEAD tag ( START ) - Headers always start with a head tag
- charset - besides the us alphabet, there are many other character sets, this line says which to use
- title - the title is extremely important. Please read our titles tutorial
- keywords - some search engines ignore this, but it is good to have them anyway. Please read our keyword tips tutorial
- description - again, sometimes this is ignored, but good to have anyway. Please read our descriptions tutorial
- robots - usually, you will want robots to crawl your site. Most search engines obey what you put here, some do not.
- content-language - this helps to classify what language your webpage is written in.
- pics-label - visit www.icra.org and label your site. This identifies you as a safe or not safe site for children. Some search engines will not list you if you don't have one of these.
- stylesheet - external stylesheets are better because they clean up your html code and also help your search engine ranking.
- shortcut icon - this doesn't help search engines, but when they book mark your site this icon will appear. You can make the icon anything you want.
- content-script-type - the html validator will force you to declare what type of script you use, if you use any.
- javascript files - external files clean up your HTML and boost your search engine ratings
- HEAD tag ( END ) - all headers end with this tag
Everything listed in the text area above is required. You can use the HTML validator to test if your document is done correctly.
All of our hosting / web design customers have the proper header information!
How are Footers Properly Used?
Sometimes people print pages or copy them and paste them into emails for their friends. Your footer should have information such as:
- Copyright Information
- Reprint Rights
- Original Location or Homepage Location
- Contact Information
- Links to Other Related Articles