Search engines like Google and Yahoo are always changing the way they index a website. But there are a few solid principles to help your website rank higher in the search engine results. 

• Keywords: Keywords are what is used to describe what your website is about. If someone is typing a phrase or a few words in Google, they are usually typing specific words to find what they want. These specific words are called keywords. As a website owner you have to think about what words people will use to find your website. If you provide a specific service in a specific location then you would definitely want to add your service and your location in the keywords. These keywords need to be put in the proper Meta Tags in your website. One of the most important Meta Tags is the Title Tag (aka Page Title). This is the writing in the blue bar at the top of your web browser. This should sum up what your website or web page is about. One of the most common mistakes of a website is when the Title Tag reads “Untitled”, “Document” or “Home”.
• Content: Content is king when it comes to the web. Search engines are always crawling websites to scan for unique and relevant content to place in a search result when someone has typed in a specific search term or phrase. Your website should have detailed rich content about your product or service.
• Incoming Links: Incoming links or “back links” are websites that link to your website or web page. When you have a useful, interesting or helpful website or web page, another website might link to yours as a resource. This is considered by search engines a “rank of peers”. Usually the more links from relevant websites will result in a higher ranking for your website. Please do not get this confused with link exchanging. Link exchanging is when you swap links with another website. This will not help your website rank any better.
• Sitemaps: Sitemaps are a great way to tell search engines about all your web pages on your website. Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer have some great tools for website owners and webmasters. XML-Sitemaps will generate a sitemap for you in different file types so you can save and then upload them to your root (public_html) folder.

When you put these all together your website should be on its way to a better position in search engine results. There is also the option of Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) on Google or Yahoo. If you would like to discuss your website please contact me and I would be more than happy to look over it and see if I could help.