Two weeks ago, Google released a search engine optimization starter guide for webmasters.

Here are guide taken from there:

Pages Title

• Create unique, accurate page titles
• Accurately describe the page’s content
• Use brief, but descriptive titles

“description” meta tag

• Accurately summarize the page’s content
• Use unique descriptions for each page

Structure of your URLs

• Use words in URLs
• Avoid having deep nesting of subdirectories like “…/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/
  page.html”
• Avoid using directory names that have no relation to the content in them.

Site navigation

• Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
• Use mostly text for navigation
• Use “breadcrumb” navigation – A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom
  of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root
  page.
• Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file
• Have a useful 404 page

Content

• Write easy-to-read text
• Stay organized around the topic
• Create content primarily for your users, not search engines

Anchor text

• Choose descriptive text – The anchor text you use for a link should provide at least a basic
  idea of what the page linked to is about.
• Use short but descriptive text

Heading tags

• Avoid erratically moving from one heading tag size to another
• Avoid excessively using heading tags throughout the page

Images

• Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text
• Avoid using generic filenames like “image1.jpg”, “pic.gif”, “1.jpg” when possible
• Supply alt text when using images as links
• Store images in a directory of their own

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