A site map should have a two-fold purpose. The main goal of course is to let the search engines easily define and index your site; a sitemap isn’t necessarily the best way to inform Google about your site, however.

Linking to a page on your new site from a previously indexed page is the fastest way to get indexed, many experts claim. However, you should still make up a sitemap and present it to Google. Once they know you have one, they will crawl it regularly.

Google needs your site map, but whether your customers do or not depends on your type of site and how well you have it set up. If you have done a bang up job of internal linking, you probably won’t see your customers getting lost and needing a map.

In this case you can stick the link to your sitemap down at the bottom of the main page and not worry about it. Usually it will fit just fine next to your Privacy and Disclaimer links.

In other cases you may want to brush up your sitemap and have it slick its hair back and don an usher’s jacket. A sitemap can be handy for confusing, complex sites, and you can utilize your sitemap to cut down on confusion.

In this case you may want to put your sitemap link up near the top of your page - the right or left corner would be an ideal place. You also may wish to consider having a ‘map’ button on each page to assist visitors with navigation.

People are notoriously fickle. If a page loads too slow, if there are too any steps to take, if there are any mistakes at all they are very unforgiving, and could bounce away from your site before you even know they were there.

Contact pages are another important component of any site. You need to let your customers know that you want their experience with you to be a good one. Take a little trouble with it, to ensure that they really feel welcome to contact you. Use color, add a graphic and if you are a lone webmaster with a small friendly site, let them know it. Explain that you might not be able to be available every second, but that you will promptly return any and all calls or emails ASAP.

This is a good place to plug yourself as well. If you include a subscription box for their email address, you can have a box for them to check or uncheck for a free newsletter or alerts, and add to your outlets in that fashion.

Make sure you follow up promptly on any questions or complaints. Don’t let things slide - strike while the iron is hot! Many people live strictly in the here and now, and before you realize it ‘out of sight, out of mind’ can creep up and your chance to make an impression is gone.

As we are anyway using the images we might as well benefit from these images in terms of SEO. We should optimize the images as well. How do we do this? One of the ways of optimizing the images for better SEO results is to add Alt attributes which is commonly referred as ‘Alt tags’. Search engines seem to appreciate when we add alt attributes to the images. The reason is very obvious; search engines can only understand plain text and not images. So if the images are supported by plain text in the form of Alt attributes, the search engines love it as they can only read what we give in the Alt text. We can use the basic keywords as Alt text and this will add on to the keyword density. However care should be exercised to make sure that it is not over done especially with regard to the keyword density. Each keyword should be used only once in the Alt text. Even the combinations should not repeat for instance if you have used “Directory Submission” in one of the alt tags then no other Alt text should have Directory or Submission used in them.

Using appropriate Alt text we can enhance the effects of SEO. Images are used in so many ways in our websites and we always have a considerable collection of images even in a simple site which can be effectively used. We use images for headers, products, background images, navigation menu buttons, thumbnails, etc. When you use Alt text do not stop just with your logo or your home page you need to optimize all the images with the right Alt text and appropriate collection of keywords and keyword phrases. The Alt text that you use should also help your website users as well so use simple, descriptive and meaningful text.

What is more interesting about the images and Alt text is that when Google images picks up the images in your website in Google images the Alt text that you supplied is used as the description in Google images. You need to try it out yourself to see how it works with Google images.

There was a recent optimization trend in which the number of images used in the websites has reduced drastically in an effort to create SEO friendly websites. However, it is not required to reduce the graphical elements in your website you can actually benefit from these elements by adding the right Alt attributes. You just need to pay attention to the size of the image so that it does not affect the loading time of the website.

Pick out a few good free press release distribution sites that will get your release picked up by the search engines. You don’t need a whole lot of them, just one or two. This way your release will be visible through search almost immediately.

Write your press release. You should always make your press releases look professional. There are seven basic components to a well done press release, and leaving out any one of them can spell an untimely demise for your release!

Header

Your header is just all your contact info (name, phone number, email address). Under that type the words FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE in caps.

Headline

Your headline is your title, which should be optimized, catchy and in bold print. Do NOT use all caps for the headline. Center it under the header.

Summary

This should just be a quick rundown of the news angle, and doesn’t have to be more than a few sentences long. Hit the main idea of the press release and hook the reader with just enough info to keep them going from the snippet to the main body of the release.

Dateline

This should immediately precede the body of text in your press release, and should include the city, state/country, and date. For example : “New York, NY - May 18 2006 - In a stunning reversal of fortune…”

Body of Text

This is the press release itself. It should give all pertinent info in the first paragraph (who, what, when, where, why) and expand on that in the following paragraph(s). Quotes are good, as long as they are short and to the point, and not testimonial type promotions.

Boilerplate and Call to Action

Following your release, you should add a paragraph with a short description of your site, business or services. Beneath that add a “For more information contact: (your contact info)” which will basically mimic the information you provided in your header.

References and Closing

Do NOT forget to give credit where credit is due. List all references, including photo credits. Center an #### below this final component to indicate the end of your release.

If you submit your release wisely, you will be picked up promptly by the search engines. You can also request blogs and sites in your field to run the release, and get some traffic and additional backlinks. Online ‘zines are another good place to get your release published. In this particular arena, duplicate content is not a concern - you want to get as many copies of the release out there as you can!

Avoid using the same title tag for all the pages; page titles are highly important for search engines and by giving the same page title to all the pages you reduce the positive results that you can get. So make sure to come up with a unique title tag for each page.

When you are using Meta tags use your discretion to remove unnecessary tags such as author, date etc. Search engines only look for keywords and descriptions part of the Meta tags.

Avoid building websites completely using Flash because search engines will not be able to crawl and index your website. Also if you have frames in your websites you might be keeping some major search engines away from your website.

While adding keywords make sure that you include only keywords that are relevant to your website. The keywords that you use in the head tags should be present in the web page as well only then the keywords you use will b effective. While adding keywords to the page text you must be careful not to over do it; your web page content should not be stuffed with keywords. If you overdo it you will attract the wrath of popular search engines. The more natural your web page content is the better. Nowadays search engines are becoming more and more intelligent they can assess a page and it will be able to determine whether the keyword density in a particular page is within normal limits or whether the page has been artificially loaded with keywords.

If you have to link pages or other parts of your website do not use links in JavaScript. JavaScript links cannot be crawled by the search engines.

Search engines never favor page redirects and there are number of websites that employ this for various reasons. Search engines consider it as a malpractice to take the visitor to another page from the one he or she intended to visit even in legitimate instances where the site has moved because the search engines will not be able to make out the difference. So page redirects should be avoided completely.

We often see the keywords are repeated in the head tags more than once and this does not do any good. Just use the keywords once in you head tags and this is tell the search engines that you are a relevant website for a search that has been made.

The site should not be duplicated in anyway; you will cause your website a great damage by using duplicate content. Make sure that the web page content is unique and not copied from other websites word for word. Also do not have the same content in all the pages of your website like most eCommerce sites have. The intro text in all the products page will be the same. Avoid this mistake and come up with unique text for each page.

Submitting to web directories is a good idea as you would receive back links in bulk but it is true that it quiet a monotonous job. But this would greatly help in building back links at a stretch. The best way to go about it would be to get a list of web directories and start submitting your site.

Press releases seem to be one of the best ways of sourcing links and this is one of the latest techniques and this is one of the most popular techniques among the webmasters and SEO professionals. Press releases can be about a new website that you are launching or about a new service that you have added etc. This would greatly support your websites as the press releases would be distributed to a number of news websites and this would certainly increase the number of people who would visit your website.

The next method is to do reciprocal linking – this is one of the ancient techniques but it still works. This is losing its popularity because it involves a lot of work but the number of links that you would get out of all that effort will be very few. Moreover, it is highly impossible to get links from relevant websites with higher PR. This is a tough path to travel for new websites. Established websites with good PR may benefit by this technique to reinforce their links. Otherwise, it is a highly time consuming process which is losing its popularity among webmasters.

You can get links by submitting articles to article directories too. You must either write the articles yourself or hire a writer who can come up with interesting articles about the niche market. If your article is interesting enough then people will publish your article in their website and you will get a one way link to your website through your article that is published in third party sites.

Another popular technique is social book marking. There are websites like Digg which are often picked up by search engines you can make use of such sites to get your website indexed fast.

Forum posting is another reliable method but you need to work your way through it to get some considerable results, it is very slow process. You can add your website’s link in your signature when you are posting in forums and these will be picked up by search engines and you get a quality one-way link again. You just need to make sure that you select active forums.

These are just some of the techniques that you can try to attract visitor traffic and to increase your back links.

If my pet clothing site carries hundreds of different items for cats and dogs of various sizes and breeds, I need to find a way to categorize so my site makes sense to the average Joe.

The rule of thumb is to assume that every visitor to your site is a complete internet newbie, and plan accordingly. First, have a clearly marked link to ‘home’ on each page, and consider making your sitemap user friendly as well. This will allow customers to reorient themselves if they get confused.

Work methodically down from your landing pages, for example:

Pet Clothing Main Landing Page
links to:
Cats Dogs Accessories

Dogs
links to:
Large Medium Small Toy

- each size links to own subset;
Coats Hoodies etc.

Cats
links to:
Bonnets Booties etc.

Accessories
links to:
Leashes Collars etc.

This way you can easily build a network of links that will expand gradually as your customer gets nearer and nearer their desired destination. You don’t want them to have to click a million times, but as long as each click follows a sensible progression, your customer will feel rewarded as they take each step closer to their goal.

The main focus is making your website easy to traverse for anyone who visits, regardless of what they are looking for. If you can provide instant gratification with each click they are required to make, they won’t mind it taking a few steps to get there.

Ever been on your way to a party in an unfamiliar town, and been thrilled to see each little arrow sign with balloons letting you know you are making the right turns to lead you to your destination? That’s the way your inner site links should be set up.

Every time you visitor clicks on a link, It should pop up choices that more nearly fit their needs until they arrive at the Holy Grail of their journey - whether that be the perfect cat bonnet or the coolest doggie duds made for a toy breed.

Once you have led them to the water, you want to make them drink, so making the buy now option very simple is your next step. Be sure the ‘shopping cart’ or similar method you employ is simple, fast and secure, and let your customers know as they complete each step that they are being properly taken care of and any information they supply will be safe.

Once you have made the sale, back up you customer satisfaction guarantee with prompt shipping and appropriate measures for the consumer’s happiness. Make sure you provide a valid, easy way for them to contact you if they encounter a problem, and don’t forget to thank them for their patronage.

Have you ever visited a website and almost immediately left because it seemed like there were more ads than anything? Have you been searching for something, and floundered through site after site only to run into slow loading and navigational issues at every turn?

If so you know first-hand how annoying it can be. The secret to a good website is to make it first and foremost user friendly. You have about ten to twenty seconds to catch their attention, and maybe another thirty to convince them to stick around.

Make your landing page clean and appealing. Restrict ads on your front page to a few on either side, and keep the page fairly short to improve load time. If you have a longer page, consider sticking some of the les important content below the fold with a few seconds delay so you can load your first screen rapidly.

Avoid flash on your landing pages - the indexing of your home and main entry pages is important, and you can miss out on a lot of SEO by incorporating too much flash into the important areas of your site.

As you get deeper into your site, you can use a little more ads and affiliates - use heavy SEO on these inner pages and your ads will be highly relevant. Make sure not to use so much that you encourage visitors to escape your site! Linking to your inner pages helps keep your visitors engaged. The longer they spend ion your site the better the chances of turning them into paying customers.

Provide an easy sitemap for your visitors. You can adapt the map you presented to Google, or make up one of your own. It never hurts to have a link to a map page - visitors will be able to reorient themselves and always be able to find what they need without becoming frustrated and bouncing away from your site.

Use your links judiciously as well - you don’t want to pull the plug on your landing page juice by detracting too much from its pull. You can always help some of your interior pages with deep links from outside sources.

As you slowly learn how to monetize your site, you will find the proper balance of content and advertising that will return the most revenue. For most sites, a combination approach is best, though some make a full income off of just pay-per-click and others shun outside advertising completely.

Of course, even all AdSense sites do best when populated with enough content to engage and direct customers, so don’t forget your SEO, no matter what kind of campaign you run - no visitors means no profits, however you look at it.