Optimal Website Structure For Crawlability and Rankability

[Sebastian]

Here is an exercise for you :

You are starting a site from scratch and working with two people. A graphic designer, say Eyenod, who will generate a psd, and a coder, Pokerprop.

Let's say your number 1 concern is having a website that will be solidly optimized from an on-page perspective.

• What structure requirements would you give to Eyenod before he starts ? This can pertain to main navigation, sidebar placement (left/right ?), location/sizing constraints for the different sections, presence of navigation in the footer, internal link placements etc.. This part is more about crawlability and structure, basically making sure Google can access your homepage and the rest of your site in a logical manner.

• What code requirements would you give to Pokerprop? Is he allowed to use tables for example ? Would you tell him to modify the css in a particular way so Google accesses certain parts of your site first ? For example, would you mod your css so your navigation bar code is at the bottom your index.html but still appears at the top of the page? A lot of people want clean code, define clean code to Jim. Any requirements on flash usage, nofollowing certain things, blocking the css page from robots, code to content ratio, how high the header tag should be in the index.html.

Let me know, thanks

Sebastian

PS: please include screenshots of site structure if you can

[Sebastian]

Thanks for the PM OPC.. keep the advice coming.

[xYassassinYx]

Thanks for the PM OPC.. keep the advice coming.

Aww lol i was hoping for people to respond, would love to hear everyones' opinions on this

[CK]

• What structure requirements would you give to Eyenod before he starts ? This can pertain to main navigation, sidebar placement (left/right ?), location/sizing constraints for the different sections, presence of navigation in the footer, internal link placements etc.. This part is more about crawlability and structure, basically making sure Google can access your homepage and the rest of your site in a logical manner.

hehe with Eduardo Im pretty easy or I hope so. I provide him with the basics using paint or something and label where everything should be so he knows this is where I want this, and this is where I want that. Its easy on me, because Im able to show him exactly what I want and what I don't, and he knows pretty much what I'm looking for. As long as things are linked to, google should find your site, but that has more to do with the coder than it does your design. Just keep the user in mind with the design though, you can make it as friendly as you want for the search engines but still end up with a mess for users. Simple is better IMO

• What code requirements would you give to Pokerprop? Is he allowed to use tables for example ? Would you tell him to modify the css in a particular way so Google accesses certain parts of your site first ? For example, would you mod your css so your navigation bar code is at the bottom your index.html but still appears at the top of the page? A lot of people want clean code, define clean code to Jim. Any requirements on flash usage, nofollowing certain things, blocking the css page from robots, code to content ratio, how high the header tag should be in the index.html.

Clean code - well I would start with saying its valid and I dont want junk added. By that I mean some people tend to add a bunch of extras that dont need to be there. Regardless of the design, there's no reason to have 7+ different styles for a simple sidebar menu. If you have everything marked for your designer also hand a copy to your coder so they know where this should be and what you want here.

I dont think there is a problem using tables. In fact if you look at some of the big sites, many of them are built with tables. Most of the ones using divs and css now only made the switch in the last year or so. I think it boils down to personal preference. There are a few people here who tried using a site created in div tags but opted to go back to tables because they felt more comfortable. Im the opposite Do I think it's something that will make it or break it for your site - No.

nofollowing stuff - meh not really needed honestly. I dont know what you would want nofollowed.

header tag - yeah I prefer mine up at the top

top menu bar - Maybe Im confused or you are I think you meant sidebar ...or maybe not. I dont worry about the top menu because it should be at the top. The sidebar can be worked in to come after the content area though.

code to content ratio - thats going to depend on your design and what you put into the page. You can have the simplest layout but if your page is light on text than its you who missed the ball and not the designer or coder.

Dont forget about the user. You could have the best design money can buy, but if its not user friendly than its nothing more than a pretty design. Pretty doesnt equal better

[Unknown Webmaster]

To the coder
1. Use validating XHTML unless you have a good reason not to.
2. Document the code so someone else are able to understand it, assume that the person have slightly less experience than you.
3. Don't use tables unless you can give a good reason.

I would include a detailed description of how the site would behave from the users perspective (a use case). This would include both myself as a user, and the visitor to my site as a user.

Since the coder and I will probably have quite a lot of experience with websites, I won't explain everything, but if something has even the smallest chance of being misunderstood, I will write a detailed description of how the user will interact with it.

[Sebastian]

Thanks for the responses guys, and Kaus for the awesome post.