The Heading 2 (h2) Tag

I want to start out with a reminder that CONTENT IS KING to the three major search engines and that means pages for the search engines have well-structured text. 

The search engines look at these top three tags in the following manner:

1 – Title tag (title)

2 – Heading 1 tag (h1)

3 – Heading 2 tag (h2)

Your (title) tag should support your main keywords for the page followed by the (h1) tag then the (h2) tag.

The Heading 2 tag (h2)

The (h2) tag is a structure tag that creates sub divisions of the  (h1) tag. Think the (h1) as a chapter title of a book and the (h2) as the subheadings throughout the chapter. 

In best structure practice, the (h2) always follows an (h1). 

Remember the goal is to bring the keywords of the (title) tag into the (h1) and (h2)

Example of (title)

Successful Mastery | Dreamweaver Training in Marin | Dreamweaver Training in Sonoma

Example of (h1)

Dreamweaver Training in Marin

Example of (h2)

Dreamweaver Training in Marin at Redwood High School

Successful Mastery Web Site

Next Comes the h1 (heading 1) tag

The important thing to remember --  CONTENT is king to the major search engines.  The content I am talking about is text.  The search engine spiders read the text and tags of your site through the markup language.  The first tag the spiders read is title tag.

Next it looks at the text and the tags that give the text structure.  The first important structure tag is the h1 heading tag.  The heading 1 tag is like the chapter title of a book.  It identifies the purpose of the page.  It should also be a match with the title tag.  If your title tag content states your keywords are Dreamweaver Training Marin -- make sure your h1 tag has those keywords in it. 

Here would be an example of the h1:

You Deserve Dreamweaver Training
that is professional, understandable, and fun
Dreamweaver Training in Marin

Take Away – Your page h1 needs to have the same keywords listed in the title tag.

Next article will be the other heading tags.

Check out Web Design Classes I am teaching at Redwood High School for Adults

The Almighty Title Tag

You may have heard the importance of Meta Keyword tags – forget it if you are designing for Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Top Three Search Engines).  These search engines use the title tag  is where you know put your keywords.  Here are some excellent tips for keywords:

1. Use the Title  tag to place your keywords.  Make your keywords more specific than general.  You have a better chance of positioning higher with specific keywords than General in most search categories.

Example - Dreamweaver Training Marin instead of Dreamweaver Training

2.  Break up keyword groups with the pipe (| )

Example - Dreamweaver Training Marin | Dreamweaver Training Sonoma

3.  Make sure your keywords are well positioned in the Web page with the Title  tag. This will be address in
future blogs.

4. Don’t spam keywords in your Web pages.   One of the two ways you can spam is to place keywords in your Title  tag that isn’t found in text of the Web page.  The other is to use the same your Title  tag within many of your Web pages.  Make sure each Web page has its own unique Title tag.

Check out Web Design Classes I am teaching at Redwood High School for Adults

SEO – Search Engine Optimization for Your Web Site 2

The goal is to have your site show on the first page of search results and be within the first five unpaid results.  Let’s take a look at the keywords: - Adobe Dreamweaver Training Marin.  Notice that Successful Mastery is in the first two positions for the regular search results, right under the paid ads.  This is area we will focus on in this series – “SEO – Search Engine Optimization for Your Web Site”. 

To achieve a high position in search results, your site must be more than simply recognizable by a search engine crawler. It must satisfy a set of criteria that not only gets the site cataloged, but can also get it cataloged above most (if not all) of the other sites that fall into that category or topic. This is no easy task.
By accident or luck, your site will surely land in a search engine; and it's likely to rank within the first few thousand results without any effort from you. A crawler will eventually find the site and bury it somewhere in the results with every other web site on the same topic. The good news this takes very little time on your part. The bad news – the chance of someone finding your site is very low through the search engines. Let’s be honest – being ranked on page 2 will limit your chance of being found. How many times do you click on the second page? We want to work towards the top 5 position on page 1. Remember – You have to start somewhere.

To achieve the top position in search results, your site must be more than simply recognizable by a search engine crawler. It must optimized for the keywords and have great text structure. Yes, I said text. Good text content and its structure is very important to good search engine positioning. Design is important and great – but it will not help you with your positioning in search engines.

Here is an example of Google, Yahoo, and bing.

TRY THIS – What is the main key words for your index page.  Do a search in the top three search engines and check out were your site is position.  Remember you have to start somewhere.

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SEO – Search Engine Optimization for Your Web Site

SEO is customizing page elements of your web site to achieve the best possible position in a search engine for your important keywords.  Elements (HTML tags) within your Web pages and external to your Web pages effect the position of your Web pages within the top three search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Three major external factors for your position in the top three search engines are:

1.  Links to your Web site: This factor only can help propel you very high in search engine ranking. But I am not talking about my site linking to yours.  I am a small player in the Web site world, but everything helps.  I am talking about bigger, popular sites like Adobe, Microsoft, Craig’s list, and CNN.  Stay away from link promotion sites; they tend to do more harm than good.

2. Longevity: The longer your site is an active and viable site on the Web.  Also, the longer your site shows up on the top three search engines.

3.  Search Engine Webmaster Tools: Setting direct links to the Web site with the big three search engines.

This series will focus on the internal factor of elements within your Web page.  How to optimize your Web pages so that the Search engines  look at your Web pages and position your page in a favorable position.  This blog is going to focus on these very important concepts for the rest of the summer.

Successful Mastery

Designing your CSS Font Style Visually

When choosing the right combinations of fonts for your Web pages in Dreamweaver it is hard to see all the fonts in your font series for the browser.

I found a great Web site that helps you visually see the fonts on line, thus makes matching up the combination more easy.  If you go to csstypeset.com, you can add your own text, and use the JavaScript interface to apply different CSS properties. 

Once you have the look you want you can copy the code in the "View CSS" window on the right and paste it into the desired CSS selector in your CSS file.

The only downside is the limited fonts.  The good news is that all the fonts are the best for viewing text online.

Coming up on April 18 and the 20 is the Level one Dreamweaver class at Redwood High in Marin.  Starts at 6 pm and ends at 9.  For More Info...

How to Add Pictures to Dreamweaver CS5

I want more than just text on my website – How do I add an Image to my page? The first step is to create or get your image or graphic and store it in a folder on your computer. Then do the following:

1. Place the Insertion point were you want your image.

2. Click on the Image: Image button on the Insertion panel on the right side of Dreamweaver.

3. Browse to find the image you want to place within the Web page. Click the OK button.

4. If you did not define your default folder when you Defined Your Site, you will need to tell Dreamweaver were to put a copy of the image. Click the YES button.

5. Find the folder were you want the Image stored. Click the SAVE button.

Here is the Image in the page.

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