This is very informative article that explains you how important is clean and well organized source code for search engine optimisation.
When it comes to optimizing websites for search engines, most people spend all their time on only creating keyword-optimized content. They include their desired keywords in their headline and frequently in the web page text.
Does it sound like you?
Well, creating optimized content is good, and it WILL increase your chances of ranking in the top 10 results.
But you know, there's a problem here …
It's NOT the only factor that search engine spiders consider when they arrive at your site. Let me explain why…
You see, search engine spiders have a different kind of eye from what we have, so they see your web pages differently. When you visit your website, you see images, colored text, that nice header graphic, and so on.
But search engine spiders only see ONE thing: the source code.
Yes, these "behind the scene" codes are the only language they understand.
And they have to wade through this code and interpret it to discover your valuable content that they will pass on to the indexing robots.
So to make them understand that your website is really about your desired keywords and should rank high, you need to speak in their language … and speak it very well.
What does it mean?
It means that the source code of your website needs to be clean, organized, and easy to understand for search engine spiders. And putting your valuable content as close to the top of the source as possible.
This is an important secret that most people are not aware of. Something that most of the 'guru's' want to keep it that way.
And this is good news for you, because when you use this secret that you just learned, you will get ahead of your competition because the vast majority of them don't even know about it. So you will outrank them more easily.
Now, many people may tell you that SEO optimization isn't that important, because there are other traffic generating methods.
But then again, if you CAN have extra free traffic using an optimized page, why not do it? It doesn't cost one cent more to accomplish this!
So "how" can you create a search engine friendly layout for your website?
Here are 3 options for you:
Option #1: You Can Do It Yourself
Of course first you need to learn a lot about HTML and also Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to learn how you can make your website HTML codes easy to read for search engines.
The use of XHTML is advised, because it results in neat coding. I also advise you to validate your pages at W3.org, to ascertain clean coding.
Also you need to learn CSS to avoid tons of redundant source code for lay-out reasons. Preferably a bit of PHP too to make your pages more interactive.
Thus you can use the CSS to make up the lay-out and elements of the page and use minimal clean XHTML coding for the rest.
That makes your content stand out perfectly and that will lead to better recognition of what your pages are about by the search engines.
As you see, that's a big hassle which will also take you a lot of time.
So let's go to the next option…
Option #2: You Can Hire A Professional HTML and SEO Expert
That's a pretty good solution because it will save you a lot of time and doesn't come with the huge burden of learning everything yourself.
But there's a big problem here: There are so many so-called Search Engine Optimization experts out there who claim to be king of SEO, but in reality do not know more about more than you do.
So you might end up hiring one of these scams and end up spending your valuable money and don't get any results. The question is, HOW are you going to find a "real" professional and not fall for the wrong ones?
Another issue with this solution is that it will cost you money… and quite a lot of money if you really want to hire a good SEO expert who knows what he's doing.
And finally, it also means you depend on a third party expert, not always available when you need her.
This all brings us to the last option…
Option 3: Use A Proven Ready-Made Website Template
This is the best, most proven, and most cost-effective solution of all.
You just need to find a template that is already proven to work, and simply add your website content to it … and that's it! Now you have a search engine friendly website that is ready to put online.
No learning hassle like the first option. No risk of being ripped-off and a big cost like the second option. It's very easy to do. You don't even have to lift a finger.
There are many websites out there that offer all types of website templates, but the problem is that none of them has really been optimized for search engines. They are just designed to look good to the human visitor's eyes - not search engine spiders.
That's why I use my own, hand coded website template, that I have developed over the years.
But does this template really work? Is there proof?
You bet! One website I have created using this Ace Website Template has ranked #8 for a highly competitive keyword out of 92,700,000+ competing websites.
As you see, this template has really proven to work.
So if you're serious about making your website rank in the top 10 results for your desired keywords and drive a lot of free traffic automatically every day to your website, you definitely want to use such a powerful website template yourself.
Author of this article is Case Stevens