Search Engine Friendly Design

Tips and Tricks for getting a web site ranked highly on search engines:
To buy your products or click on your adsense links - people have to find your website. Most traffic comes via search engines - so you have to cater for them.

Do consider search engines when designing your website
Do take time to get your content to be as user and search engine friendly as possible
URL names can be important for many search engines - if they contain keywords it can help but don't make them too long.
Do try to keep your content succinct and to the point. 300-500 words per page is ideal
Do use keywords and phrases intelligently throughout your content
Do use a unique Title and Description and Keyword Meta Tags on each individual page of your site
Do ensure that every page is linked within your website
Do try to include keywords or phrases around links in the text of your website
Do use thumbnails (smaller images that can be clicked on to enlarge) for photos that you want to present on your website
Don’t ignore search engines when designing your website – it is harder and more expensive to retro fit search engine friendly design after the site is live
Don’t publish reams of content on a page
Don’t publish massive photos or graphics just because you think they look good
Don’t cram lots of keywords into your meta tags – use them as they were meant to be used
Don’t copy content from another website and use it verbatim on yours – all content you or anyone else puts up is copyright to the author – respect that copyright.
Don’t copy a competitor’s meta tags and use them on your website
Don’t use any tricks like invisible text or keyword stuffing – they will only get you into trouble!

Get Listed on the Search engines

Unless you plan to spend money advertising your web site - you need to get it listed on the major search engines.
The main search engines you need to consider as part of your online marketing campaign are as follows: Google, AOL, Yahoo!, Overture, Inktomi, Alltheweb, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Teoma and the ODP (Open Directory Project).
Some of the above are technically directories meaning that a human editor reviews your website before entry into their database. The most well known directory is Yahoo!.
The Open Directory Project is one of the least known but most important directories as it powers results to Google’s listings among others.
Yahoo! is the web’s most visited website.
Google feeds results to AOL and is one of the most popular search engines in the world.
If you focus the core of your online marketing efforts on Google, Yahoo and MSN you will be well on your way to getting access to over 90% of the search engine traffic that counts.
How to get indexed
All of the search engines have a facility to let you submit your site. For example, if you go to www.google.com/addurl.html you will be able to submit your website to Google. It may take up to 4 weeks before the Google robot (as called a spider) visits your site. However, it is also possible that you will get visited by the spider so long as there is a link on the web somewhere pointing to your site.