Source ordered design

This page will eventually gain some design. What you see now is simply the source - or "what google sees".

When you're optimising for google, also known as SEO = Search Engine Optimisation (or Optimization if you're from USA), you'll wanna make sure that the important stuff on your page, such as the main article (this text on this page) comes first. Menus, headers, margins etc should be at the end of the document. What's on top is most important, pretty much as in a magazine, a newspaper or a PM.

In real life, this would be the main article. Generally - in good old table designs, this part comes in after a lot of other markup, menus, margins and stuff. Here - we put it right at the top, where it belongs.

And we use standard markup

Like the header above - an "H3" or bold and italic. No funny business - clean markup and Google is happy.

Menu

Now here's the menu. Way down on the page since it's only a few words and links. Don't worry - Google still finds the links and indexes them too, but you don't put to much weight on the actual text here.

Ok, you argue, this is a text and not a menu! True - I'm trying to make a point here, not link to other resources. Bear with me for a while, I'll fix it eventually.

A link back home to Abatopia then, makes this a bit more menu-like.

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional

This is important. If your page doesn't validate - Google might also have problems (although it's probably very tolerant). But always check your pages - if it's valid, it can't be bad.