I hand code everything in Dreamweaver and test/view what I am creating in Firefox and IE and find this to be the quickest way to create pages. So if you are building a static X/HTML webpage then there is no need for anything else, set up your CSS and webpage all in Dreamweaver and test in all the browsers you can get your hands on, I find testing in IE6, IE7, Firefox and Google Chrome suitable for most things.

Firefox web development Addons.

Firefox is both a great web browser and an ideal tool for web developers. There are simply loads of free addons to make your life and day to day work tasks easier. The one I use most when building a webpage is FireBug. This tool gives you, with the click of a mouse, detail about any page you are viewing, it can show you all the DOM elements on the page and their related CSS styles, it lets you manipulate the DOM to test or see where problems are and also has a JavaScript debugger built in. One the the best thing I find with FireBug is the ability the view AJAX XMLHttpRequest POSTS and Responses so for testing AJAZ applications it is simply great..

Firefox also has an added called “Web Developer” which when installed can be a great tool for testing XHTML and CSS to see if everything validates. This addon also lets you disable JavaScript and CSS easily and is good for resetting sessions and clearing the cache.
You can download FireBug here – http://getfirebug.com/ .
Download Web Developer here – http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/

Testing Locally

If you are like me and use PHP and MySQL then you will have to set up a local web server to test your work. For the non technical there is a great all-in-one download that will set up a  development environment on your PC in a few easy steps. XAMPP by Apache Friends is a simple download and install to have your own local web server up and running so you can test your MySQL AND php Applications before going live.
Download XAMPP here – http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

SQLyog MySQL GUI client.

When creating databases it really is quicker to have a good GUI client to help you set up all your tables and to test queries before you put them in your page. I use SQLyog from www.webyog.com, its fast, easy to use and great for testing your database queries.

Follow the guidelines below for some basic on-site and off-site SEO tips for.

On-Site Tips

Read my post on how to code a page for SEO

Domain name ( www.mydomain.com )
If you have not yet registered your domain name try and find a name that will include your  major keyword, keep it fairly short though. If your market is only in a particular country try to get your domain name with the countries domain extension, for example .co.uk for the UK or .es for Spain.

Hosting your site
If your niche market is based in a certain country, go with a reliable hosting company in that country.

Page file name ( www.mydomain.com/filename.html )
When creating the pages on your website put the main keyword for the page in the filename.

Page title tag
Your page title tag should not be more than 70 characters in length and have your main keyword or phrase at the beginning. For example
<title>My keywords – My website title</title>

Page heading ( <h1></h1> )
Try to place the <h1> tag on your page as near as possible to the top in the page code. Include the main keyword / key phrase in the <h1> tag as well.
Keep any css and javascript in external files this will keep your code clean and lean.

Off-Site Tips
So you have created your website and hosted it with a good, reliable hosting company.
Now you need people to come and visit your site !
Creating good quality back links to your site will quickly push your site to the top for your niche keywords :

Social media
You can get your first links from social media sites, this will allow the search engines to find you and index your site. The search engines spider the social media websites regularly and will follow the links you create back to your site. Doing this also gives you the opportunity to spread the word about your site to a community of people.

Mixx.com
This is a good and currant Social Media site to start on, create a profile at www.mixx.com and submit news links. These news links are then posted on mixx.com and the search engines will follow them to your site. You can also edit your profile on mixx and create another link back to your site.

There are lots of other sites out there that function in a similar way to mixx. Here is a list of a few of them that I find to be useful;

1. digg.com
2. misterwong.com
3. reddit.com
4. propeller.com

Social bookmarking
The Social bookmarking sites are also very good for getting back links to your site and again, for spreading the word about you new site throughout the vast online social network. Some of the best bookmarking sites I have found are listed below;

1. stumbleupon.com
2. folkd.com
3. delicio.us
4. buzzflash.net

By following these basic tips you should be able to get your site ranked highly for your niche keywords. In my next article I will talk about blogging for SEO and how this can rocket your site to the top !

Want some help or advise? post a comment below.

When creating a xhtml page on your website here are some important considerations for search engine optimization. This is a basic rundown or checklist with some of the most important elements for the on site SEO of your page.

Document declaration and headers.

1. Declare the document type;
   The most common is the Transitional
   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
2. Give the document an xmlns attribute and set the page language code.
   <html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en” lang=”en”>
3. Declare the head element of the page
   <head>
4. Define the character set used in the page.
   <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />
5. Define the page Title element
   <title>Title of the page</title>
   The page title should be around 40 to 70 characters in length and be a description of the text content of the page. The title should also include the main key words / phrases that you would like it to be found for in the search engines. It is possible the most important part of the page in terms of SEO value and is what the search engines use as the link through to your site in their search results pages.
6. Define the page description.
   <meta name=”description” content=”detailed description of page” />
   The meta description of your page should contain approx 25 words or around 150-200 characters and should be a detailed description of the page content. The meta description has no direct SEO effect but is normally used by the search engines in their results pages as a description of the link through to your site, and so should be an added incentive for a user to click, containing relevant keywords / phrases .
7. Include external CSS and Javascript files.
   <link href=”css/styles.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” media=”all” />
   <script src=”js/functions.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
   Always keep your CSS and JavaScript functions in external files as this keeps your page code cleaner and easier for the search engines to spider your pages.
8. Close the head element
   </head>
9. The document Body
   <body>

Important XHTML elements of a page.

<h1></h1>
This is the main text header for the page. There should be only 1 <h1> element on a page and like the page title it should be a short description on the page text content.

<h2></h2> / <h3></h3>
Sub heading h1 to h6. Use these to split up your paragraphs with sub headings. You can have numerous h2 to h6 tags on your page.

<p></p>
The paragraph tag, used for the paragraphs of text on your page.

<strong></strong>
Used to bold text. Search engines will put emphasis on any text that is bold on your page. Do not over use this tag but if possible you could bold up your most important keywords.

<em></em>
Used to italicize text. Like the <strong> tag the search engines will put emphasis on text inside this tag.

<a></a>
Used for creating links. The <a href=””> attribute is used for the link and will pass page rank to the page it is linking to unless you add a nofollow attribute, <a href=”pagename” rel=”nofollow”> . When linking out to other sites it can be a good idea to use the nofollow attribute so you can pass all your page rank internally in your site.

<img>
When adding images to your page always include an image ALT attribute along with width and height. eg. <img src=”myimage.gif” width=”100” height=”50” alt=”keyword for image” /> Width, height and the ALT attribute are all required for valid XHTML.

Summary

The text content of your page is obviously very import in how the page will rank, Try to have a minimum of 300 words on the page written grammatically correctly. The text needs to be both engaging and interesting for your user at the same time written so the search engines can spider the page and index your content with ease. Code your pages using external CSS and Javascript and use relevant and semantic XHTML formatting.

Next Step

Promtote your web page.