The above are a few "must do’s" for today Search Engine submissions, and please take note that "inclusion" in Directory does not guarantee Top Placement. The only way to insure #1 positioning is through good Meta Tags & in fast growing case of Pay-Per-Click & Sponsored Listings. But, that’s another article.

***Additional Note about Yahoo!: Once you’re in directory, Yahoo! also offers opportunity to "Sponsor" your category. For prices ranging from $25 - $300/month (more for REALLY popular categories), you can have a text ad running in Sponsored Sites area above regular results. This is great if you’re one of only 5 sponsors for that category. When cateogry has over 5 sponsors, and ads are rotated each time page comes up. At Keywordmarketing.net, we’re still testing results of these Sponsorships and will know more in a few weeks

Meticulously inspect top ranking page, counting total words and keyword frequencies on each element of page. Some elements may be missing; some pages may not have meta tags. Don't worry about that because sometimes an engine may actually give a page a higher rank without meta tags. One easy and fast way of analysing these pages is by using a software package designed for that. Three such packages are GRSoftware Keyword Density Analyzer, WebPosition Page Analyzer and PositionWeaver PRO. Use exact word counts and keyword frequencies found on top ranking pages. You may be tempted to add or reduce from word count or frequency a little, but do not do that. That may actually cause your page to rank poorly since it may not pass fine mathematical margins that engines set.

The next step is to edit your current pages or make new ones that have these exact same statistics. For example, if your current home page has a title that is 17 words long and has your keyword appearing 4 times, and your research indicates that top-ranking page has a title 8 words long with keyword appearing once at beginning of title, then change your home page that way. Do same for all other elements. You can also use software such as PositionWeaver or a database software or script if you can create one to build new pages with these statistics.

Once that is done, final step is to submit your home page and wait. If you did your job correctly, then in a few days or weeks (sometimes engines take a while to index) you will see some very encouraging increases on your site traffic. And with high popularity that top search engines enjoy, rewards are very much worth all this effort.