I have been operating web sites for the last couple of years. I have developed a proven method of getting the sites I run into the search engines quickly. I then use that same method to help get them to rank well for a small number of keywords, allowing the buoyancy effect to come into play for the rest of the site when one or two keywords ranks very high. In case you were not aware, when one or two keywords rank well within a given site, many secondary keywords enjoy a buoyancy effect and are lifted because of the nice rankings of the main keywords.

When preparing a site for launch I will initially review a few characteristics of the site. The first things I look for on the main pages are the use of H1 and H2 tags inside the actual text on the home page. The reason for the tags is that the search engine spiders will instantly look at text contained inside of the tags to determine the overall theme of the web site. When the right tags are used and the right content is available to support them, the search engines have a very easy time determining what the site is about and can more easily include or exclude it when they encounter users looking for terms that are on your website.

I will also look for the use of anchor text on the home page pointing to other main pages in the site. The use of image text should be kept to a minimum as I have been able to help many website owners achieve better rankings by moving the text away from the image and into the body of the website. The search engines cannot read images, so you miss an important opportunity to have them read the text contained within any image. The solution is to shrink the image, remove the text and position the text around the image in an attractive manner.

I always like to have a unique page for each main keyword of the site so it can highlighted appropriately. Search engines always like to be able to go to a page where the name of the page is the same as the keyword, it gives it an intrinsic value. An example is that of wedding flowers where the home page would contain wedding flowers in anchor text and point to a unique page with the title and html name of wedding flowers. With this convention in place, the search engines will know exactly what to do and will reward the site with the right theme and keyword indexing.

I also study the use of underscores and dashes. Lots of studies have been done concluding that underscores do not rank as well as dashes in naming conventions. I have no idea why it is so but it is so we should all follow the guideline. Even if everything else was exactly the same, it has been proven that two pages named graduation-day.htm and graduation_day.htm will not be rewarded with the same rankings. Many studies have been done proving the results so I always stay away from it.

I also will question the search engines to find out what they think the theme of the site really is. I have found the best tool to use is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. I always enjoy finding out what the search engines think the site is about by looking at the main keywords it gives back as the result. I am always amazed to see what the search engines think the site is really about and then get to work fixing their perspective. Most often the issues are easily fixed by adding some H2 tags and by adding no follow lines to some of the links in the site. If you and the search engines disagree on the theme of your site the situation can easily be turned around.