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Optimize relevant phrases.

Target the right phrases to pull visitors to your site. “Car wax” or “auto wax”? “Multi-channel marketing” or “multichannel marketing?” Research search frequencies and terms using server logs,the Overture suggestion tool, the Google suggestion tool, and WordTracker.

Write Good Titles.

Page titles should be grammatically correct, describe the content of the page, and make sense to humans. Each page should have a unique title. Use Title Case. Keep titles between 40 and 70 characters. Include keywords, placing important words first.

Gain Inbound Links.

Your PageRank depends on the quantity and quality of inbound links to your site. More is better. Seek links from vendors, clients, partners, trade-groups. Track who is linking to you via Google or Alexa.

Its All About Content.

Gain traffic through relevant, well-written, informative content. Break long articles into a series of linked sub-pages with appropriate headlines and titles. Provide appropriate links between content and product pages with effective link text.

Text Links for Navigation.

Search engine “spiders” can’t read images. Link via text instead.

Use Smart HTML.

Mark headlines with H1 tags, and subheads with H2 tags. Use CSS to make them pretty. Move heavy scripts and CSS off the page into include files. Make sure your HTML is well-formed.

“Spider” Friendly URLs.

Are your URLs more than 150 characters long? Do they contain session ID strings? Do they contain more than three ampersands? To get around these problems, consider URL rewriting via mod_rewrite or ISAPI filters. Consider a static site map. Avoid link-rot: keep old URLs working.

Avoid Unethical Tricks.

Invisible text. Hidden links. Doorway pages. Automated submission. Shadow domains. Keyword stuffing. Link farms. Guestbook spam. There are many unethical search engine tricks. Don’t use them. Avoid vendors who use them.

Run Fast and Lean

Ensure your site is fast and never down. Keep page source under 10K. Keep page with images under 50K. Text content should out-weigh HTML markup.