Boot Camp

Web Authoring Boot Camp
As of 2010, the general consensus (Wikipedia, etc.) is that the following browsers are
most in use:
34
• Firefox: 46%
• Internet Explorer: 31%
• Chrome:17%
• Safari: 3-4%
• Opera/Other: 2%
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to make a website as search engine
friendly as possible. This is so that it can be found when searched for and whenever possible
have high rankings in search engines like Google. Search engines collect data about
a website by sending an electronic spider to visit the site and copy its content, which is
then stored in the search engine’s database for future reference.
Spiders (also known as ‘bots’ ) start reading in the top left hand corner of a site, and will
read content line by line from left to right. If columns are used spiders will follow the left
hand column to the end, then move to the remaining columns. If a spider encounters a
link it can follow, it records the link and sends another bot to copy/record data found on
the linked document. The spider will proceed through the original website until it records
everything it finds.
SEO makes it easier for the bots to get around so the search engine’s database fills accurately.
You should:
• Have an SEO sitemap. Create and link to an XML text-based sitemap page in
your footer that lists your main pages and/or main website topics, with links to the
pages/anchors where they are. (Note, this is different than a design sitemap or a
visitor sitemap.)
• Use mini-link lists on web pages that have more than three text subjects. This
helps visitors jump to the section on the page, and also adds the keyword again for
the spider.
• Limit access to your website with a robots.txt file in order to keep the robots from
searching every external link.
• Choose a good website URL domain name. Make a site’s domain name as relevant
to the site’s purpose/uniqueness as possible: http://www.studiobast.com –
studiobast is the company name.
• Create an effective title tag in your code’s head section. This title shows in the