The true reason SEO exists is due to the fact individuals and businesses compete in getting their site to a top ranking position within the search engines.

It is therefore from the early stages of site creation that SEO procedure is considered and followed.

The following chapter provides you with information on how to organize your project in order that you may build a site relative to SEO rules and procedures.

The first area you’ll need to concentrate your efforts is the preparatory stage of site construction.

One of the key ingredients of successful SEO campaigning is a site that is full of useful and keyword rich content and thus follows the general theme you’ve arrived at for your site.

We’ve already covered keyword research in Chapter Two. Keywords are the primary ways your users will find you. Further we’ve expounded later on in our book as to the importance of keyword research and suggested your web pages evolve around your keywords.

With this in mind, you may now begin the preparatory phase of your site’s construction.

Another important reminder is that on the “net,” content is king; therefore, plenty of content will be needed to be prepared before your site’s design is even initiated. Also, this content needs to be composed prior to your selecting a domain name for the site.

If this sounds a bit like: “putting the cart before the horse,” it isn’t. In fact, you will need to compose your content in order that you may easily incorporate it into your design scheme, writing articles pertinent to each section of the site you propose to construct.

In example, if I were to build a site in regard to “travel planning” herein are areas I may want to write articles. Under the tab entitled “Destinations” I may choose to include regional sub-categories as follows:

1. Metropolitan Vacations; New York

2. Exotic Locales; Morocco

3. Equator; South America, Africa

4. Caribbean, Curacao

Also, when organizing my site’s sub-sections, you may recall within an earlier chapter I advised the search engines prefer it that you do not go any further than three levels deep when you compose your site’s design. This would include the homepage of your site.

Therefore, when creating my tabs under the title: “Metropolitan Vacations”, I may include travel excursions to cities such as: New York, San Francisco and Houston.

From the homepage you are clicking twice: Once on “Metropolitan Vacations” and Second on the City of your choice.

Within the various categories you devise, you may write appropriate content of four hundred to five hundred words in length and in accordance with whatever has been set as your keyword density requirement.

You may start writing content categorically just as if you were daily submitting articles each time adhering to keyword density requirements and thus writing articles incorporating keywords.

It is generally suggested before you even begin to construct the site that you have composed at minimum one hundred pages of article content.

Think of this in theory as if you were putting together any standard book. You certainly would not be able to index, put together the final table of contents, and manufacture for publication if the content that went inside of it did not exist.

Therefore, put together your site, thinking in similar fashion with the tabs being the chapters, and the subject-matter relative to the tab being the sub-titles found within the chapters.

Here is what I mean: “Metropolitan Travel Destinations” equals chapter and “New York Vacations” is a subtitle where in reality “Metropolitan Travel Destinations” is your tab and “New York Travel Vacations” is part of your offerings under this particular tab.

If you need new ideas as to setting up sites and under specific categories, you may always go to Google and type in the words associated with your site’s subject-matter or “niche.” Once you pull up some relative sites you may review the various sites in order to attain ideas how you might like to lay out your own site.

Remember, when starting your site design it is very much like a rough draft of a book: You can always make changes or modifications before you finally decide on how you wish to categorize the products and/or services you are offering.

The second area you’ll want to consider in putting together a successful site is your domain name.

You will want your domain name to provide your site’s visitors with the name of your site.

At this writing, the preferred way to get your domain name recognized by the search engines is by proper “branding.” You needn’t necessarily place the keywords in the domain anymore.

The idea here is as with any company name is to get recognized and acquire a presence on the “net.”

Although your keywords may be part of your domain and many beginning SEO primers recommend you place keywords inside the domain, it is no longer a primary factor with the search engines.

If you wish to market your site by “branding” then in this day and age you are on the right track.

The third area you will wish to consider in making your site a success is how you design your site.

Remember this rule of thumb: Simpler is better. The text content portion of your site should amount to far more than your html code.

Also, your pages should “validate” easily and be useful in all types of browsers.

Here is an insight: The html code needs to be structurally sound and quite simplistic in nature.

The search engines’ robotic spiders will respond by absorbing far more of your site’s content if you assure your html code is simple.

Also, as I’ve alluded to at the beginning of this eBook stay clear of graphics such as Flash, Java, or DOM.

If you absolutely must have a scripting language on your site, then create an external file for it.

Search engines detest JavaScript therefore there is little reason to employ it within you design scheme.

Another item to keep in mind as to site design: Do not clutter up the cleanliness of your site by incorporating into it a host of non-relevant links.

Individuals surfing the net nowadays are looking for simplicity when navigating about your site: Therefore stay apprised of this concept.

Also, your site should load quickly provide an almost instant response to any request. There shouldn’t be even the slightest delay.

Remember this: your site should respond to any request within three to four seconds—after that, any further delay will cost you ten percent of your audience for each additional second. This is why site design must be simple with great ease of navigation.

The fourth area you need to adhere to in designing your site according to SEO is to keep the size of your pages small.

My recommendation is to keep your page under 15K if you can manage it. The best or preferred page size is between 5k and 10k.

The smaller page sizes, it has been found work quite well for the search engines as well as for individuals surfing the net.

The fifth rule to adhere to as to site design is to compose at minimum one page of content per day comprised of 250 to 500 words.

If you have developed a mild case of “writer’s block” relative to your content, I suggest you use the Overture Keyword selector tool and find a set of keywords relative to your subject-matter.

In this way, as suggested in a preceding chapter, you may compose content that revolves around your keywords and insert keywords according to density requirements.

The sixth rule of which to adhere as to your site construction involves keyword positioning and density.

In review, you must use your keyword once in the following areas of your site:

1. The title tag;

2. The description tag;

3. The heading;

4. The URL;

5. Once within BOLD;

6. Once within Italics:

7. Once high on the webpage.

The best keyword density ration is at minimum five percent and maximum ten percent for the entirety of your site.

Assure your composition is well-written and spell-checked for accuracy. This is extremely important as the search engines use a feature known as auto-correction during their searches.

In other words, the view here is that there is absolutely no reason for a site to be “riddled” with misspellings.

The seventh SEO site design rule is to link to at minimum one relevant and quality site.

Also make certain you use your keywords within the link text as it makes all the difference in the world as to successful site optimization.

The eighth SEO site design rule involves internal linking standards.

You will want to link to related topics across your site.

In example, if your page is about Travel in China assure it links to vacation packages in the region.

It is extremely important when pleasing Google as to page rank that you design your site including in the design on-topic internal linking. In so doing, you are sharing the value of your page rank across your site.

The idea here is you do not want one page producing one-hundred referrals per day; rather, you want twenty-five pages that produce one-hundred daily referrals.

You do not want one page outperforming the rest of the pages on your site: This will be out of bounds as far as Google’s Page Rank value.

Should you find a page outperforming your other pages, you’ll need to balance things out a bit by moving it to other pages on your site.

The ninth activity you’ll need to employ in creating a successful site is to properly get your site on-line.

One thing you will want to steer clear is any type of virtual hosting. Choose a hosting plan with an IP address.

Also assure your site can be easily “crawled” by the major search engine spiders. In order to do so, make certain the following is in place relative to the design of your site:

1. All your site’s pages should be internally linked to at least one other page located within your site;

2. The pages should not be more than two levels deep—that is from the root page. In this regard, remember to vertically link your topic back to your root.

3. The menu should be linked to your website’s primary pages.

Do not place your site on-line until it is up to your precise standards as far as quality.

You need to “tweak” and perfect your site before it makes an on-line appearance.

It is a good idea to attain a listing within the Open Directory Project (ODP) as this will definitely increase your Page Rank with Google.

Also if you have the revenue available, it will be helpful if you submit to Yahoo! and Looksmart in order to attain a higher page ranking.

The tenth rule of which to adhere as to the success of your site is to submit your site to Google, AltaVista, WiseNut, Direct Hit, HotBot and Fast.

Submit your site to each of the search engines once and follow-up as to submission in six months. This has been debatable amongst webmasters whether submission is necessary in regard to SEO. However, if it makes you feel more confident to do so then I advise you go ahead and do it.

The eleventh rule in establishing a successful site is to install a good tracker on your site.

Do not settle for an inferior graphic counter.

Your host should support in-bound referrals. If your hosting company will not do so then you will need to seek out one that will provide you with this support.

In conclusion, attain a quality tracker. The tracker should be based upon referral log files.

The twelfth rule in establishing a successful site is to learn to assess the results found within log files.

The way you assess the results found within the log files is as follows:

After sixty days you will begin to notice a few referrals of places you’ve been listed.

Look at the keywords individuals are using in order to find your site. Once you “spot” something out of the ordinary, construct a page around these “new” keyword combinations.

In example, if your site is about lemons and individuals are looking you up using “lemons citrus fruit” then build a webpage around these keywords.

Remember keeping the search engines and users happy is what successful site design and implementation (according to optimization standards) is all about.

Chapter Nine – How to Establish a Successful Site in One Year

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks