The heart and soul of optimization of any website boils down to the structure of the website and its navigation scheme. This is the first and foremost key to optimizing your website for the search engines.

Keywords are of little use if the search engine spiders cannot properly index your site. The ease with which they can move through your website will determine how they perceive it.

Once you are sure that your website structure and navigation are optimized then you can concentrate on the content.

Website Navigation Models

We will examine three different website navigation models and see how they work and how the search engine spiders see them. They are:

Linear navigation is used for a website where you want the visitor to go from one step to another in a particular order. This is usually used within a website but seldom as a stand alone design. The idea here is that the visitor follows the pages in a predefined order or sequence that you determine. This is particularly usefull for tutorials. But, it also has many other uses.

The database or grid design of website navigation is made up of multiple main divisions and each division is linked to its own database. This type of navigation can be used effectively when large amounts of data are required in the website design. With database navigation the visitor begins by selecting the main heading that best serves their purpose. From there they can drill down deeper and deeper into the selected database.

The hierarchical navigation design goes from the general to the specific; from a home page to main sections to subsections and databases. A visitor could easily go from the home page to other areas of the website and back again. The goal of any hierarchical navigational system is to offer the user a clear and simple way to access all pages in a site.

Note: you don't want to put a direct link to everything on your website on any single page. Your website links should progress through several levels branching out as they go. Too many links to choose from and the search engine spiders will get confused and improperly index your website.

Many websites are a combination of navigational models and you will have to determine which method works best for your web pages. It is important to have a clear idea of your navigational system before you organize and optimize your website.

Optimization tips

Put your keywords in your title tags
Be sure that your keywords are in your content
Do your keywords accurately describe the theme or subject of your page?
What words will users type into search engines to find your website?
Does the page contain JavaScript? If so, how much of it precedes content?
(CSS and JavaScript is nice, but engine robots don't have a clue as to what to do with it and often give up if there's no content nearby.)
If your website is a business, have you made sure your business address and other information is easily available on each page?
(Directories look for this when reviewing business sites.)
Did you optimize several pages of your site for certain targeted keywords? Be sure that your page titles reflect your keywords and be sure to repeat them in the body text of the page.
Are there plenty of text links on your pages for robots to follow?
(They don't follow image map links or options in drop down menus.)
Did you read each engine FAQ to make sure you avoid SPAMMING their database before you submitted your URL?
(FAQ's change often, so you need to keep checking back.)
Do you have any web sites linking to your website? Links from other web sites similar to your own will increase the relevancy of your website in search engine results.

Note: Remember your keywords should be in your filename, heading (i.e. page title) and in the first paragraph of your web page.

ROR/RSS Sitemap Generator

Be sure to add a ROR/RSS sitemap to your root directory to help the search engines classify your site. Search engine spiders can quickly evaluate a website by scanning your ROR/RSS document and this helps you to get indexed faster and with more accuracy.