Give your site an MOT
18th February 2008 05:12
by tom
We often have clients asking us to check out their site and see if there are any bits we'd suggest improving or changing, so I thought I'd just list my quick top things to check out for and make sure your site has. This is far from exhaustive so please feel free to add more at the bottom.
1. Do you have title tags on your pages? - Missing these out is a classic mistake and they're definitely worth including. Make them relevant and on topic and unique for each page.
2. Do you have loads of JavaScript or CSS code at the top of your page? - It's best to split your CSS and JavaScript out into separate .js and .css files. This might sound a bit technical but having this stuff bulking up the top of your code doesn't help with your SEO.
3. Add alt tags to your images - This is vital if you want to get your site passed the HTML validators, but also very handy for ranking in image searches, for example Google images.
4. Are you *still* using tables? - That's very 2005 :) It's all CSS layouts these days. If you want to employ someone to code you a new site make sure they are using CSS based layouts.
5. Have you got an XML sitemap? - There are loads of tools out there for creating XML sitemaps and it may be worth creating one.
Nothing too strenuous there :) If you think of anything then please let me know and I'll add it to a revised list.
