Meta Keywords
It used to be that back in the day you could stuff your website with hidden key words {Meta keywords) and the search engines would index your site based on those keywords. This allowed you to have more text visible to the search engines in a logical manner and not thrust that to your visitors.

Well, I have a number of customers that still play that game and then when their ranking drops it must be someone else’s fault. 

The fact of the matter is that Meta keywords while they can play a role in your sites indexing qualities are not all that important.  Rather, the search engines are heavily favoring human readable text for indexing.  Keywords are only important if they are supported by the human readable text.

Rich Content
The most important factor in your sites search engine index quality is the content that your site delivers to visitors.  If you are doing business on the web and expect the search engines to be your partner then you need to do a little bit of work in order to make that happen. 

If you are selling something then you need to be an expert on what you are selling.  This is business 101 and has nothing to do with the search engines.  Do you want to buy a car from a salesman that can not answer your questions about the car or make intelligent comparisons between different models?  What about your health care provider? Do you want to get advise from a general practitioner about a life threatening illness or do you want to ask for a referral to an expert on the subject?  

Now that we have established your expertise in your subject matter, let’s put it to work for you on your website.  If you are passionate about your business then you have a leg up on the matter.  Write about it.  Blogging is all the rage these days because it is an convenient format for writing and organizing information.  But it is not the only way to get the message across. If your website does not have a built in blog and you are not technically oriented then simply writing articles is a great way to get the information on your website.  As you are writing though try to think about your subject matter from the point of view of a lay person not an expert.  Simply put, write in a manner that conveys your technical information in a manner that explains to the non expert.  If you use technical terms, and you should, define them for the novice.  Also, be concise.  While the search engines will love your long winded chatter remember that the only thing the search engine can do is bring someone to your website.  It can not make the read it.  This is why blogs are so good. They make it easy to create a series of short articles that can be grouped in categories and archived.  Here are some other tips for writing for the public:
 
Inbound Links
This is the most difficult of the three topics covered here because you have to ask someone to put a link on their site.  Why would they want to do that?  Well, if they are putting a link on their site then you should offer to put one on yours. 

There are several organizations out there that offer link exchanges.  Be careful about using these. You should only want to exchange links with sites that you are familiar with and that create a synergy with your site.  You should consider reciprocal links much like you would a business referral, after all that is what you are doing.  Look for business that you do business with that are in the same industry but maybe a horizontal niche.  For example, if you are a wedding planner consider setting up links with the vendors you use for planning a wedding or a travel agent that you refer your clients to for honeymoon planning.

Other places include business directories(such as AustinMarketPlace) and your Chamber of Commerce,

Okay.  This is all I have for now but remember one thing….   The message we try to convey to all of our customers is that the only guarantee we can make about your sites search engine optimization is that if you do nothing… nothing will happen.

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