As a followup to the Working Solo Minute on Maximizing Your Web Site Rankings (#40), here are some additional tips from Web design professional Kevin Shoesmith of Venn Communications. In this issue Kevin shares four common mistakes that can hurt your Web rankings.

1. Use only a dash of Flash.
Flash, a multimedia authoring and playback format from Adobe, can make Web sites look very fancy with animated graphics or video. Unfortunately, search engines don't know how to interpret Flash or read these pages. This can be particularly deadly on your home page, since the search spiders can't index your site. If you're after high search engine results, use Flash sparingly.

2. Fix broken links.
Links are your lifeline to good rankings. If your site is filled with links that generate "404: Page Not Found" results, you'll not only frustrate your visitors, you're also decreasing your chances of high search engine results. "Search engines don't like stale sites," says Kevin Shoesmith. "Broken links show that your site is not well maintained."

3. Clean up your code.
Sloppy HTML or CSS code can confuse search engine spiders, making it difficult for them to understand the structure of your site. "Clean code stands as a clear marker for what the search engines should look for," Kevin says.

4. Avoid frames and graphic text.
Frames confuse search engines because they cannot detect what information should be on a specific page. Similarly, text that is shown in graphic format (buttons, for example) is not interpreted by spiders as text but as an image -- and therefore remains unreadable (and not indexed). So if your entire home page is one large graphic, the search engine is finding little of value -- even though it may be quite captivating to visitors who somehow find it.

As you prepare to update your site to reflect a 2009 copyright (that is on your To-Do list, right?), consider spending a few more minutes checking on these items, too. It could result in more visibility for your site -- and more profits for your solo business.

-- Terri Lonier
Founder, WorkingSolo.com

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