Most webmasters have no idea on how to make a search engine friendly web site. If you are one of them this will all change by following these steps below.
1. Research keywords - Before you start to build your web site you should research your keywords or your site may get hurt in the short term. Use the keyword research tool, use Overture to research the most popular keywords that are related to your site. Overture will show you how much traffic each keyword has got in the past 30 days.
2. Create a list of about 50 to 100 keywords that you can include within your web pages. After having completed the above research, you should have found the keywords that were searched on most frequently, but few competing sites.
3. Write a paragraph of at least 250, but better with 500 words of text for the top of each web page. Put your keywords within this text, but be careful because you could repeat your keywords to much and make sure the paragraph makes sense with all those keywords, remember visitors are more important then the search engines.
4. Optimize meta tags - Meta tags have lost there touch with most search engines, but they still help! The most important meta tags are the keyword and description meta tags. Include your keywords within each of these meta tags. Your keyword meta tag should include the most frequently used keywords contained within your web page, but keep it short to about 10 to 15.
5. Title Tag - The title tag is one of the most powerful on-site SEO at your disposal, so use it wisely. Put your most important keyword in the title close to the beginning as posable, keep it short and to the point.
7. Optimize your site size - Too many images or very large images on your web page will slow down your server and cause slow loading times for your site. Slice large images into smaller pieces with a graphic editors. Also to long of pages and to much text will do the same.
8. Find backward links - Web sites that link to yours raise your link popularity. Search for web sites that are compatible with yours. Write articles that are related to your site and submit them to sites like Articlecity.com.
Matt Colyer is the owner of the Marhen.com Network which includes www.linkexchangeit.com and is a part-time SEO. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.