For the best search engine rankings, you need to understand (and accept) that search engine robots (sometimes called spiders) are not as clever as people, so it’s important if you’re looking to have your website listed on search engines that you speak the same language they do. By language, I mean HTML, xHTML and CSS. Writing valid syntex helps search engines understand the code on your site and in turn, list you effectively. This can greatly increase the traffic your website receives from search engines with very little investment.

Writing valid HTML code will also have the side advantage for rending in visitors browsers better, faster and without errors. Everybody likes a websitet that words, so instead of driving away traffic you can follow some simple tips to improve both the number of people how visit your site and the amount of time they spend on it.

Modern HTML editors such as Adobe Dreamweaver do a great job of building better websites but they still have some problems writing clean web code, once you’ve completed your website pop over to the W3C Validator and test your website. This will tell you how easily search engines can read your website. Remember, a single error can cost you the difference between being on the first page of search results or … somewhere else.

Remember, coding web pages isn’t easy and doing it well is even harder but it takes practice and eventually you’ll pass the W3C’s tests. Sometimes it takes me hours to get a simple page past their inspector, but it’s worth it in the end.