(1) Choose a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist or optimize your web site yourself.

The first and most important step you can take to achieve top ranking in the search engines is to decide whether you should hire an SEO specialist or do it yourself.

Naturally, it is less expensive to optimize and position your own web site, but it takes hours to learn how to do it correctly and even more time to keep up-to-date on search engine changes. Most companies contract with an SEO agency to assist with their web sites' promotion, because they simply have more important issues to deal with.

Hiring a search engine optimization specialist is the other alternative to higher ranking in the search engines. Knowing who to hire can be difficult.

In general, there are four different types of SEO specialists.

1) Search engine submission services - This type of so-called SEO specialist uses automated software to submit your web site to search engines, not directories, like Yahoo, and link lists. This service results in few good rankings and the majority of the search engines you do get listed on are not widely used.

2) Pay per keyword phrase companies - This type of service charges you a set amount for top 10, 20 or 30 ranking. For example, one company charges $85 for each top 10 ranking and $50 for any ranking between 11 and 20, with a minimum of $1,500. Who can afford that? Especially when it doesn't guarantee any sales.

3) Optimized pages stored elsewhere - This service builds, optimizes and positions web pages on a different web site than your own. These rankings do not last because once you stop paying for the service the company deletes the pages from their server and your out all the good rankings your web site had.

4) Comprehensive SEO specialist - These true SEO specialists concentrate on optimizing YOUR web sites' overall content. Some basic optimization includes determining keyword phrases people are using in a search to find a particular product or service, TITLE optimization, HTML tag optimization, alt tag usage, utilizing keyword phrases in the body content, and suggesting changes to the design if need be. This option is by far the best long-term, cost effective solution.

(2) Create clean pages

Web site developers that do not provide search engine optimization as an added feature don't realize that a web site needs to be search engine friendly as well as user friendly, If it is to gain top ranking on the search engines. Here are a few tips on creating clean pages:

1) In general, search engines often have problems indexing web pages that include certain characters in the URL. Some of these symbols include: ?, &, %, + and $.

2) JavaScript used at the top of a document can impact your sites ranking because the search engines tend to give a higher priority to content at the top of a document. The theory is that the content at the top of a web page summarizes what is to follow.

3) Pages that include frames cause problems for some search engines because they can't read the content included in frames. They can only read the content in the <NOFRAMES> tag. If possible don't use them. Only complex web sites with detailed navigation and levels need frames.

4) Try to limit the use of tables.

(3) Choose targeted keyword phrases

All pages of a web site need to include keyword phrases someone might search on to find the product or service provided at the web site. Choose the right keywords and your traffic will dramatically increase. Here are a few tips on choosing the right keyword phrases:

1) Think of single words and then combine them with something more specific. For example, if you sell real estate in Montana, it is better to use the phrase "Montana real estate" then to just use "real estate". You will have a better chance of getting a top position plus it is more specific.

2) Think of alternative phrases that mean the same thing. For example womens apparel, womens clothing and womens wear.

3) Consider misspelled keywords if it is misspelled often. For example, realestate and realistate

4) If you cater to a specific city or state include the name in your keyword phrases.

5) Do not use your company name as your main keyword phrase because people will not be searching for the name of your company. If your company name is widely known, like Remax, include it by all means.

6) When you think you have found a perfect keyword phrase make sure it is being searched on. If you get a number one ranking for a keyword phrase but no one uses it, it will not generate any traffic or sales.

(4) Write a compelling Title

Search engines and directories display the Title of a web site when it is found on a search result. Following are some tips for writing a good Title:

1) Use your most important keyword phrases when creating a Title.

2) The Title should be appealing and around 5 to 8 words long.

3) Include as few common words as possible, for example, a, and, the, for, it, etc.

4) A Title is a headline so make it interesting enough to click on. For example, "Tips to help rank your site on search engines" or "Top search engine ranking in 6 easy steps". The second is better because it solves a problem, solves it fast and sounds interesting enough to read more.

(5) Compose keyword rich body content

Some search engine spiders take the first 25 words or so from the body content of your web site and use them as the Title and description of your site. Other search engines spider the top, middle and bottom of your site and randomly choose words to describe your site. Here is an example of a listing found by searching on "travel to Europe" on AltaVista:

Home | Register Web Search: News Home Page. News Digest. Nation. World. Metro. Business. Washtech. Sports. Style. Education. Travel. International....
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/travel/index.html

This is the navigation bar on the left side of the page.

If the first part of the body tag is keyword rich you will have a better chance of ranking high and explaining what your site is about. It is also important to have keyword phrases throughout the web page, but don't overdue it. If you use the same keyword phrase excessively it could be considered spamming. Some search engines use the META description tag information instead of the body content, but only if the META description tag was created. Other search engines, like Google, ignore META tags, so, always optimize your body content to include keyword phrases.

(6) META tag creation and optimization

The two most important META tags are the META Description and META Keyword tag.

The Description tag should be around 25 words or 200 to 250 characters, including spaces. The description should be compelling, interesting and include keyword phrases. Remove as many "stop" words as possible. META Description tag should be coded like this:

<meta name="Description" content="Place your description here.">

The Keyword tag suggests, to the search engines, which words you would like it to use when a query is performed to find your web site. However, search engines do not consider the META keywords as important as other areas of your web site. When creating the META keyword tag:

Leave out commas, or leave out spaces to gain room for more words.

In general, list keywords in lower case. (Most people search using lower case.)

Do not repeat the same keyword more than 3 to 7 times

Keep the site focused by only using around 12 keyword phrases per web page.

META Keyword tag should be coded like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1,keyword2,keyword3">

or like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1 keyword2 keyword3">

By the way, not all search engines use META tags to rank web sites so be sure not to skip step 5.