Code writing is an essential part of creating a search engine friendly web site. One error people make is thinking that meta tags will solve all their problems. Some experts tell you to simply include your keywords in the title and meta tags, create a site with quality content and the search engines will flock to you and rank your site near the top. This really couldn’t be further from the truth.

Next, not using a title for the page - Failing to use a descriptive and well thought out title containing your keywords will harm your rankings. Every page on your website should have a different title.

As well, not making use of the heading tags can be a big mistake. Search engines consider text in heading tags as a good indicator of what a page is about and the searches for which it will be relevant.

Lastly, many webmasters overlook a crucial aspect of web site promotion: the validity of the HTML code. As with every language, HTML has its own grammar, vocabulary and syntax, and each document is supposed to follow these rules. And like other languages, HTML constantly changes. Code that doesn’t follow the official rules is considered invalid HTML code.

So why is valid code so important to search engine optimization as well as your whole marketing effort?Because search engines parse the code to find relevant content. If your coding contains errors, it makes it difficult, if not impossible in some cases, for search engines to find the content. If they can’t find the content, all your efforts are in vain.

Search engine crawlers obey HTML standards and can only index your site if it complies with those standards. If there's a mistake in your code, they might stop crawling your web site altogether. And although most major engines can deal with minor HTML errors, a single missing bracket in your code can be the reason your page can’t be found in search engines. If you don't close some tags properly, or if some important tags are missing, search engines might ignore the complete content of that page.

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Create a title tag that communicates a message while utilizing your keyword near or at the beginning of the title. And don’t use the same title tag text on every page. Additionally, you’ve probably seen all over the Internet free Meta tag generators with offers to create the perfect meta tag. What they don’t tell you is that the majority of major search engines don't read meta tags anymore and the ones that do give them little importance when deciding how to rank your page. Meta tags can be important, BUT don't make the mistake of thinking that this is all you need to be found on the Internet.

Use Heading tags - these are your H1 and H2 elements. And actually I think it goes to H6, but the most important ones are your H1 and 2. Say you have a page selling men's apparel and accessories. Instead of an H1 headline that reads “Clothing and Accessories for Men," you'd be better off with a headline that says "Men's apparel and accessories."

Next, use Alt attributes, or tags as they’re commonly called, for your images. Now I want to explain something really quick about Alt attributes. You’ll hear a lot of back and forth about whether it’s good or bad and everyone always has a different opinion. Here’s why I use it. It has to do with using valid HTML code and the W3C standard. Does anyone not know who the W3C is? They are the World Wide Web Consortium and are the governing body for web standards. The W3C standard is to use the Alt attribute with images. The primary purpose of the Alt attribute is for text browsers or for browsers with images disabled. So, when it comes to Alt attributes, use them and do it properly. Not necessarily because you’ll get higher rankings, but because they serve as alternate, readable text for the search engines and doing so follows the W3C standard.

So valid code makes it easier for search engine spiders to index your site so you should make sure that at least the biggest mistakes in your code are corrected. How can you check the validity of your code? The SEO community uses the W3C HTML Validator. It’s a service that checks for conformance to W3C recommendations and other HTML standards.

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