Tips for Optimizing Your site

There are innumerable factors that can affect the search engines rankings. These factors vary from search engine to search engine as well as these vary from time to time as the search engines continue to improve upon their algorithm for ranking the sites. Out of the multiple factors that affect the search engine rankings, only few factors can be influenced by the webmaster that principally include the content management and the site structuring / programming etc. Few other factors that can be monitored are basically exploiting the loopholes in the search engines algorithms but such factors are short lived in their utility as the moment they are detected, they can adversely affect your rankings as well. As an example, while reciprocal link exchanges worked well for some time, today as the search engines have improved algo, this is looked down upon.

Therefore, it is important to focus on those ranking factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.
First and foremost factors that can be controlled and rather I must add that as webmaster you should be first to control these factors are the unique content, and site programming as web page title, description, and various tags etc.
After having controlled these factors, next factors that can be controlled to varying extent are PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL, and Relevant Links.
While designing the site, make sure each page on your site has a descriptive page specific title and description. The title, description, and header tags as h1 and h2 tags are channels to communicate and emphasize the most important keywords of a specific webpage.
Syntax of web page url is very important. If the major keywords of your subject are there in your web url it would give great boost to the ranking of the page. Use of hyphens rather than underscore in the page also helps a lot. Don’t over indulge in increasing the keyword density. Many webmasters while programming the site, use isapi-rewrite tool that creates html pages out of dynamic pages and generates urls like =id. Some search engines mistake them for session ids rather than the web content.
Simple Navigation:
Ideally, the navigation of the web site should not exceed 4 levels and where you are unable to control the levels till 4, give site map. Some Search engines take long time to crawl pages beyond 3 levels. Restricting your site to just 4 levels would get the site indexed fast. Whenever a new content is added, add a link to it from an existing spidered web page.
Choice of Domain and Location of Hosting:
While most common belief is that meaningful url relevant to the web content helps, even the domain does help. As an example, .ca domain and hosting in Canada will increase the domains search engine position in any .ca search engine. If you are targeting a specific region or market consider purchasing a local domain.
All this should be besides good and informative content. Good content would definitely attract good quality links over the period of time.
Your website may be on any subject, try to present the good content without much jargon and confusion. Where ever possible try to add humor and add aesthetics to your site. Get your site audited through a professional to know if it alienates a visitor in any way. Consider adding tutorials that explain a specific technology, create a niche directory or a topic specific glossary, post industry news, maintain a blog with fresh content.
Writing press releases does wonders for your site. Write a press release and issue the same to good reputed sites. You may also have a small section for press room at your site where the releases can be posted. Press releases can also be added to RSS feed. Issue press release on any occasion such as introduction of new products or updates.
There are few warnings too for using unfair means for site optimization:
First, never try to get links through imprudent means . beware of sites that promise you dozen links for a dime. Search engines prefer links obtained over time rather than links achieved all at once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal links. They can be time consuming and have very little benefit.
Optimize your site for Right Keywords:
Before creating content for the site, it would be a good idea to research on the net as to how many times a word has been searched on during a given period and number of sites that compete for a particular keyword. If you optimize for terms that are too generic, you may get increased traffic but reduced conversions.
Examine web logs to determine what your users are using, look at the language used in emails and forum posts and consider optimizing specific pages for popular descriptive terms. You would see that many visitors land on your site for terms on which you wont have sufficient and good content.
It would be better idea to generate content for terms on which your site is ranking high and you are getting visitors abut content is not sufficient.