Content - Even if you spend the time or money to develop good keywords and appropriately use meta tags your content still must contain relevant material. If you have surfed the Internet you will find sites that use Macromedia Flash animations or a lot of graphics to convey information. A missed opportunity to present the search engine spiders and robots with relevant information and potential ranking placement for search results.
Keywords - Keywords are extremely important, if not the most important, area to focus your time on during conceptualization phase of your web site's development process. You must identify the keywords and phrases that your customers will be searching for when they perform a query on the search engines. Keyword placement also play a role in how the search engines will rank your page.
Link Network - Building a good link network is a key factor documented by every major search engine ranking algorithm. Many opportunities to build fictitious links on the Internet exist, we recommend that you take the extra effort to develop valid content related linking strategies. Alta vista states in their submission policy that "A Web site that attempts to manipulate search results may be blocked from the Alta Vista index." After all the Internet can be a great source of information or frustration. If you providing a high quality link network of information to your customers, you have just taken a step forward in building your business' credibility and web site quality.
Search Engine Submission - The submission process is a simple process, but you must be actively involved. Some companies and software packages advertise submission to hundreds or even thousands of search engines. We recommend that submission to the major search engines be manually completed and monitored. If you submit your site to a search engine you should verify that it is actually listed in the index or directory. Once listed, you must perform periodic verification of your web sites inclusion. Search engines submission should also be completed anytime major changes are made to your web site
Interpret the Data - When an Internet surfer is conducting a search, you must target what a potential customer is searching for in a search engine query to find you. If you have the best web site with the most relevant information, but you ignore what your customer is looking for you won't get found. You must actively analyze the data in your server logs and pro-actively seek your target audience.
It is a Process - Once your web site is up and running, it is critical that it be maintained. If you buy a car and never change the oil or perform routine maintenance it will soon quick performing. The same is true of you web site, once your site it published it must be properly maintained.
