The page title tag is next in line of importance. It influences where your web site will rank within an engine. Keep it down to a maximum of 60 characters (including spaces), and place it at top of HTML code between .

Search engines also use hyperlink popularity to determine your ranking. This means that it's important to have as many links to and from as many other sites as you possibly can. Talk with other reputable web sites —that relate in some way to yours —about a link-swap campaign, wherein each of you will provide a link to other’s site. The bonus to this is that each time someone visits this web site, they'll see link to your web site, which can increase your traffic results.

Needless to say, search engine submission is vital to your online campaign as well. Your primary focus should be getting listed with top 20 search engines, which are most heavily trafficked. More than 97% of all search engine traffic comes from 20 most popular engines and directories. Once you've accomplished that, you can move on to some of smaller engines. Being listing with little guys will actually help boost your rankings with bigger guys.

Why focus specifically on top 20 placements? Rarely will anyone look any further — and if your prospects don’t find what they’re looking for in those first 20 spots (and what they’re looking for is you), they’ll simply try again with a different search.

As public becomes more educated about importance of SEO, competition for top-20 rankings becomes fierce. If your web site is not search engine friendly, better step to it —without one, you'll be left in dust… leaving your competitors to snatch up what could have been your profits!

If you’re thinking that getting these elusive top 20 placements on your own seems quite daunting (if not downright impossible), I don’t blame you. Which is why a wise and logical investment for many businesses is to outsource this important task to a full service SEO firm who makes it their full time business to optimize sites and achieve top placements. After all, shouldn’t you let your SEO expert worry about these arcane (but very important) issues; and focus your own time where it’s most valuable…growing your business and serving your customers?

A good sitemap will:

Provide text links to at least most important pages on your site; depending on size of site, it may have links to every page

Give a short explanation of each page on your site, to inform your visitors about your website

Give your visitors information they need when lost in your website, and show them how to reach page they are looking for

Provide a pathway for search engine robots to follow in order to reach your most important pages

Provide important keyword phrases in sitemap text and hypertext links that help automated search engine robot "understand" what page is about

Help search engine robots find static landing pages that then link to dynamically generated pages they may not otherwise find

Even if your website is small, add a sitemap for your visitors and for search engine robots.

To make your sitemap most attractive to search engine robots and your human visitors, be sure to include descriptive text along with page URLs and links. Use your keywords in that text, including appropriate content for each of pages to which you link. Be careful not to overuse your keyword phrases, though, or you may be penalized in rankings. Remember that this is a map that will be used by both search engine robots and your human visitors. If content of page makes sense to people who visit your site, chances are it will make sense to visiting robots as well.

When you make it easy for your visitors to navigate your site, they will find what they are looking for. When you make it easy to search engine robots to move around on your site, you increase your chances of being favorably listed in their search results.