When experiencing search engine problems with Google, the first place you should be pointing your finger at is your current implementation of basic website fundamentals. Website fundamentals are what is supposed to be happening on your site, but might not in fact be happening. In short, all websites require routine maintenance in order to keep them up to Google’s standard’s of quality.

Presenting Website Fundamentals

The biggest mistake webmasters make is engaging in superstitious behavior by wasting their time on things they have absolutely no control over, such as trying to unnaturally build link popularity.

Webmasters should spend their time only on things that they actually have control over.

“Stop trying to buy backlinks and spend more money to reward their inhouse SEO who had done a great job on the crawlability and architecture of the site.” – Googler Matt Cutts

They should work on their webpage layout, choice of keywords, the text appearing on any web page, as well as the design of their internal link structure, and so on. A well designed internal link structure is the first step in building good pagerank. This also involves designing an easy to use navigation system for visitors to your site. Webmasters do NOT have any control over what other sites link to them. But, they do have control over both internal links from within their own site and inbound links from related websites that they also happen to operate.

7 Basic Website Fundamentals

The fundamental concepts behind Search Engine Optimization are understood by few in the SEO community. Those in the know will find this list of the seven most important fundamentals for avoiding problems with Google most revealing.

1. Choice of Overall Theme or Topic Area for your website
2. Choice of Topics or Keywords to be covered on each page
3. Unique Title Tags and Meta Descriptions on every webpage.
4. Easy to Use and Accessible Navigation
5. Design of Internal Link Structure
6. Static URLs that are short and keyword rich (Dynamic sites, like WordPress, should use URLs that mimic static URLs)
7. Flesh out pages with TEXT that targets your decided upon keywords.

Your designs are implemented by fleshing out all the topics that you want to cover with original content in the form of TEXT on all your planned web pages. Your site content should be logically organized by placing related topics in separate sub-directories. Site developers should plan their internal link structure so that visitors can reach all of their webpages within 3 clicks of the mouse. They, also, should be able to classify each page as being level 1 (home page only), level 2 (the home or major topic area of each sub-directory, Level 3 (primary topic within each major topic), and level 4 (a subtopic to each primary topic).

Websites are designed to attract human beings to visit them. Search engines are designed to help human beings find what they are looking for. Search engines are a gateway to your website. Therefore, one obvious website fundamental is that web pages should not be designed or written by anyone who does not know how to use a search engine. If you do not know how to use Google to find what you are looking for, then you are in absolutely no position to be designing webpages.

Website Visitor Fundamentals

One way of approaching website fundamentals is from the point of view of a human visitor to your website. Do you know for sure what happens when your website is visited by real people searching for information? Is your site accessible?

Website Crawability Fundamentals

Another way of approaching website fundamentals is by examining the crawlability of your site. The SEO community is totally confused as to the correct meaning of website crawlability in reference to preventing problems with Google. Do you know what crawlability is and how it affects problems with Google?

Website Search Engine Fundamentals

Yet, another way of approaching website fundamentals is from the point of view of computer visitors to your site which come in the form of search engine bots, spiders, and crawlers. Do you know what happens when your website is crawled by googlebot?

• Google is a Map Maker
• Important HTML Meta Tags
• Wikify Your Website