Search engine optimization is not rocket science, but it does take a degree of dedication to stay on top of the continually changing environment. Every Web site owner desires improved search engine rankings, but very few actually dedicate the time and expense necessary to structure their Web sites, pages, content and other elements for improved
search engine rankings. That’s actually good news for those who do make an effort, because it keeps the level of competition down.

Search engines operate using proprietary algorithms that seeks-out a Web page, pulls the code into their system, dissects the code to find the content, determines the appropriate keywords that best represent the content, and then ranks the page relative to all other pages on the web that represent those keywords. Search engine companies never divulge specific
information about how their algorithms work. If the information were public, many site owners would just simply find ways to circumvent their efforts in order to give their Web sites an unfair advantage.

Regardless of your skills or how much you know about search engines, there are some fundamental guidelines that every Web site design should follow if they want to maximize their chances for good search engine rankings for their targeted search phrases.

1. Provide informational content.
   The truth is that search engine are not really looking for your web site. They are only interested in the content and information a site contains so that they can direct users to Web pages that contain the answers or information their users seek. It is therefore important to build information-rich Web pages that focus on a product, service or informational theme. Each Web page should contain a minimum of 250 to 500 words of keyword-rich content. Don’t skimp on this.
2. Don’t just focus on the home page.
   At one time, the home page was the most important page within a Web site. And although some search engines do use the home page as the representative page for your site, most of the major players have abandoned this technique in favor of linking directly to the individual page that contains the search phrase a user is searching for. Today, every page is a potential entry point into your site, and a candidate for improved search engine rankings. Build your inner pages with search engines in mind.
3. Develop a keyword theme for each page.
   Each page targeted for improved search engine rankings should focus on one to three keyword phrases. Keyword phrases represent the keyword theme for the page. Selecting the most effective keyword phrases is a critical task. Choose these keywords wisely. It is very important that the phrases you choose are those actually used by prospective customers to search for the products, services or information that you offer. If you choose the wrong words to represent the pages in your site, your optimization efforts will be fruitless. A number one position for a keyword phrase that no one searches for is worthless.
4. Develop effective HTML title tags.
   Developing an effective HTML title tag is an important aspect of the optimization process. The HTML title tag is the number one spot that a search engine spider checks when looking for your keyword theme. The title tag serves a dual purpose. Search engines recognize the words in this tag as the theme for the content on the page. Your keyword theme therefore needs to be part of the title tag. The title tag also displays in almost all search engine results as the title for the page. Words in the left-most positions in a title tag have more weight than those on the right, so don’t make the mistake of using your company name in the left-most positions unless you believe customers will specifically search for your company name. The most appropriate words in the left-most positions should be your keywords. If you want a company name in the title, use the right-most positions.
5. Use heading tags appropriately.
   Heading tags (<h1> through <h6>) are intended to describe the contents of a paragraph. The words they contain are awarded a higher relevance by search engines and thus they should contain the keyword theme for each page. Learn to use heading tags on all information pages. Cascading style sheets (CSS) can be used to improve the look of text within heading tags.
6. Develop an inbound linking strategy.
   Links from other sites to your site have become an important aspect of search engine optimization. Major search engines record every link they find to your site from other sites. The more links they find to a site, the more important that site appears to be. Some search engines will not index a new site unless links are found from other sites. Whether you agree with this logic or not, it behooves every site owner to build inbound links to their site. Links from sites in your industry or sites with similar content are weighted more heavily than links from urelated sites.
7. Use keywords in both internal and external links.
   Whenever possible, keyword phrases should be used in all text hyperlinks. These keywords should describe the theme of the page being linked to. This theory applies to both internal links (links among pages within a site) and inbound links (links from other sites to your site). For example, if you have a page where you sell green widgets, you should use the words "green widgets" in the text links to the page.
8. Eliminate coding errors from your Web pages.
   HTML coding errors can be abundant in Web pages. Browsers are very forgiving and will correct most errors as they render a page, but these errors may cause a page to render more slowly as the browser attempts to correct the code. Search engine spiders have a different mission and will not waste time trying to decipher junk code. Learn to use the W3C validator (World Wide Web Consortium) to assure that your pages adhere to established HTML coding standards. These standards are recognized by all current browsers and all search engines.
9. Avoid site designs that are unfriendly to search engines.
   Certain site and page architectures are known to be detrimental to search engine spiders. Spiders have a difficult time searching sites using HTML frames, because a frame page is actually made up of several individual HTML pages. Many of these pages have no links to other pages. When spiders cannot find hyperlinks to follow, they abandon the indexing of the site. Use a standard site architecture and make sure that your most important pages are in the root directory. Also, search engines do not currently follow JavaScript links, so if you use a JavaScript menu, make sure that you provide an alternate path using hyperlinks for search
   engines to follow. Better yet, scrap the JavaScript menu and update it with a CSS menu that uses standard hyperlinks.
10. Avoid the use of spam techniques.
    Spam, in search engine jargon, is any technique intended to deceive a search engine in order to achieve artificially high rankings for a Web page or site. Spam techniques are commonly used by a large number of site owners and they do achieve a certain level of short-term success. The real problem with this approach is that sooner or later a search engine will detect what is being done, or someone will report it to the search engine. When spam techniques are discovered, most search engines will penalize the site. Penalties can range from a reduction in rank to an outright elimination for a search engine’s database. Google has become very adept at identifying spam techniques and in recent months has completely removed thousands of Web sites from their database. Although spam techniques frequently do work, they only work until you get caught.

To view the published guidelines for the major search engines, visit the following pages:

Google Webmaster Guidelines

MSN’s Guidelines for Successful Indexing

Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines

Although most of the guidelines appear to be simple recommendations, the guidelines lay out the rules that should be followed to avoid penalty situations and reduced ranking positions. If the goal is to develop improved search engine rankings, the guidelines laid out by the search
engines should be taken very seriously.