A SIMPLE TRICK I LEARNED !

[Nick]

Thanks for that, a lot of people will find that helpful.

I've been developing a site, and it's not the getting indexed part that's hard (i've got that done!). The hard part is getting top rankings on heaps of search engines with a large variety of keywords/phrases.

There are many ways to do this, which could include:

*using heading tags in your HTML, like <h1> <h6> etc
*using XHTML/CSS
*not using tables for layout
*not using images for navigation - use a ul/li list nav with css.
*use descriptive and good content, that includes keywords/phrases that people are likely to search for to get to your site.
*make your keywords or phrases stand out both visibly and search engine wise (it works for both) just wrap them in bold tages.

There's some other complex stuff which I don't 'get', but that's some simple stuff and that's worked fairly well for me.

 

[Fembot]

There's also Google AdWords if you can't do it yourself.

 

[Flint]

Great list, Nick!

Hey I'm new so I'm not sure if this is posted elsewhere, but I'd also add...

XHTML/CSS means separating your content from your styles. Don't use <font> tags and don't style your content within your html. Ideally, if you view your html file, it'll just be a bunch of div/span/h1-6/ul/li/etc elements...no styles. Do all the styling in a separate .css file.

Picking a keyword-rich domain name (e.g., keywordthatyouwanttotarget.com) can be a quick way to instant high ranking. If you want to rank #1 for "weight loss" and you buy "weightloss.com" it's your battle to lose. Google and other engines give a ton of priority to keywords within the domain name.

Keyword-rich file names: On a similar note, make sure your page url's are keyword-rich. Maybe you can't have weightloss.com, but you can have yourdomain.com/weight-loss-tips.html, and that will help more than yourdomain.com/page3.html

Backlinks are links on other sites that link to your site. When somebody links to you, that's a backlink. Those are key. Each link you get out there in the ether (especially to relevant parts of the ether) helps you tremendously, both in SEO rankings as well as in "guy clicked the link and found you" direct referral traffic.

The easiest way to start building backlinks is to become a member of some relevant forums and put a link to your site in your signature. The more active and valuable you are in communities, the more you (and the community) will benefit.