Local government Web sites are growing more sophisticated, employing new technologies to better present content and public information. However, many sites still are not attracting as many visitors as they should because they are difficult for Web users to find through search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Search engines look for a few key elements to determine whether a Web page is relevant to a user's query: the Web page title, as shown in the title bar of a browser; the “header;” the text on the page; and the text other sites use when they link to your site. With that in mind, the five most common mistakes that Web site designers make that bury their sites far down in search engine results include:

1. Poor use of page titles. The Web page title is the single most important factor search engines use to determine whether the page contains information that will satisfy a user's query. For a city Web site, the title of the home page should be “Plattsburgh, N.Y., City Web site” or something similar that accurately describes the site and closely matches keywords users might enter in a search engine to find the site.

2. Lack of a “header” on all site pages. A header is a set of words surrounded by HTML code that is used to identify a section's content (much like a bold and underlined title in a Word document). For Plattsburgh, the header might be “Plattsburgh, N.Y., City Web site.”

3. The same titles and headers appear on more than one Web page. The title and header that appear on each page should be unique to that page and should describe the specific content on that page.

4. Not enough text on important Web pages. Search engines cannot read pictures, Flash or PDF files. Ideally, every page of the site would be full of text about the main subject, but at the very least, that is critical for the most important pages of the site.

5. Using image links, Javascript or redirects (automatic changes) from one page to another instead of text links. Although search engines can follow alternative types of links to another page, search engines most easily recognize words used in a text link to describe the content of the linked page. Images and Javascript links essentially hide content from search engines, so the linked pages will not receive any traffic from the search engine.

The ideal Web page has a title that clearly describes the content of the page and several paragraphs of text that cannot be found elsewhere. Also, other pages that link to that Web page would use text links that describe the page's content. So, a Web page about garbage collection in Plattsburgh should have a title similar to “Garbage Collection in Plattsburgh, N.Y.” or “Plattsburgh, N.Y., Garbage Collection,” and pages that link to it should use similar keywords in their links to the page.

By beginning to follow those few techniques, cities and counties can help search engines understand their site content, which will push them to the top of search results, help users find the information they need and increase site traffic.

The author is president of Boston-based Stone Temple Consulting (www.stonetemple.com) and publisher of Marlboro, Mass.-based City Town Info (www.citytowninfo.com).