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One way links are extremely powerful. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php If you want people to link to your website and for the top search engines to take an interest in your content, then write with an enthusiastic commitment to your subject matter. Your language will be naturally rich in great keywords. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Many SEO people in the past have claimed that if you misspell a word, it will have a positive effect on the search engines. This can be so, but it the long run, who are you trying to impress? http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php To let browsers know what kind of code you are using within your pages, don't forget to add the 'DOCTYPE' at the top of every page. This will also aid a successful validation with w3.org. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Some people feel that validating HTML is a waste of time and effort. 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PHP is used to comunicate between a database and the web-browser. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Although using WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) applications to create websites is quick and easy, it is far better to hand code your web pages. HTML is not a hard language to master, but by learning it, you will release a far greater potential. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Put your keywords in to header h1, h2, h3, etc to improve your page rank. Only use h1 once for your main heading. Other headers can be used multiple times. Don't write whole sentences with them - headings only! http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Avoid high dependence on table driven design. Each cell is read by certain browsers in sequence: from top left across. Use CSS to produce your layouts. 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It is far better to stick to standard html and css for the wow-factor (and the search engines of course). http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Your website's home page is the most important page on your site. Don't use it for a 'splash screen'. Provide amble amounts of textually information about the site - a summary of contents, pack with all of the important keywords relating to your subject. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Don't forget to add your keywords (in a descriptive manner) to both your 'alt' (within images) and 'title' (within url links) tags. The trick is, as with all search engine optimisation techniques, to aim to please both the search engine and your visitors. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php Add you main keywords to the name of your files, folders and even domain. Seperate each word with a '-'. Example: www.gardening/plants/flower-seeds.html. 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It wouldn't take much to modify this to display a background image instead of colour. http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php A string is a peice of variable data stored in association with a word starting with a '$'. Example: $name = "James"; echo "My name is $name"; http://www.webdesign-4-beginners.co.uk/web-design-techniques.php