What Search Engines Want

1. high quality, topical content
   1. content should be well organized and easily accessible to visitors
   2. indepth articles or topics should be broken up into manageable pieces across pages
2. reputation
   1. mature site that's been operational for an extended period of time
   2. incoming, unreciprocated links from reputable websites
3. size
   1. when all else is equal, bigger is better
   2. when all else isn't equal, don't compensate with duplicated content (see I.)

• Keyword Stuffing
  Repeating your target words and phrases over and over will look bad to your visitors as well as the search engines.
• Design to Rank
  First and foremost create a site that works for your target audience. Just because you're #1 in the SERPs doesn't mean your site is converting!
• Doorway Pages
  These are pages designed to solely rank on a particular keyword or phrase. Good search engines recognize them for what they are and punish their sites.
• Script Based Navigation
  Client side scripts are brick walls to search engine indexing robots. If you use them you'll need a site map and alternate links to all your pages.
• Duplicate Content
  Duplicating an entire site will surely get you banned. Duplicating selected content can be fine, but copy too much and you'll look like a lightweight. (Always respect copyright restrictions!)
• Hide Text
  It's a classic technique to increase keyword density. It's also obviously deceptive and widely punished.
• Use Graphics where Text Works
  Search engines don't have eyes. They cannot (yet) understand pictures. They want text. Give them what they want.
• Cloak
  Cloaking is showing humans content different from that shown to search engine spiders. If the search engines catch you doing this, you'll be banned.

• Design for Your Audience
  Make a website your audience will love. It should be content rich, but not overwhelming. Information should be well organized, easy to reach and accessible. No more than 500 words per page. Indepth topics should be broken up into logical units across several pages.
• Use Your Keywords Judiciously
  Your most important keywords should be in your title tags and headline tags. But their occurance should be natural. The text in links pointing to a page tell the search engines what the page is about.
• Use Simple Navigation
  Search engine spiders should be able to find all the pages on your site easily. No page should be more than three clicks from the home page. Keep in mind that most spiders can't follow script navigation.
• Cultivate Incoming Links
  These should be from high quality, high ranking sites related to your own, if at all possible.
• Update Regularly
  Keep your site current and up-to-date. When all else is equal the more current site has the edge.
• Name Files Appropriately
  If you use your city's skyline in a header, use the city name in the photo filename. Use alt and title attributes in the in the image tag.
• Concentrate Page Rank
  Design your site navigation to be wider, rather than deep. There should be many more links coming into your home page than going out from it.