Here's how to do it right:

A is for Accessibility. If the search engine spiders that crawl the Web cannot access your site, it won't appear in the ranks on Google, Yahoo, or any of the other search engines. People won't know your Web site exists when they search for something, and you won't get traffic. There are a lot of things that can be done to avoid this, though. First, home pages of Web sites should be mostly text. If they have a lot of tools on them such as JavaScript, Flash, or dynamic page generation, the spiders can't get to your site from those tools. They can be on the home page, but they have to be managed very carefully so that there is enough text for search engine spiders to find the site and index it properly. If this is not done, the site will either not be found or it will be ranked so low that it might show up many pages into a search. Ideally, a Web site should be ranked on the first page of a search, because many people do not look beyond that first page of results when they are searching for something.

B deals with Branding. A company's Web site has to address issues and questions that potential customers might have. It also has to make it clear what is being sold, who it is targeted to, and how and why you should acquire it. One of the best ways to do this and still have natural writing and information on a site is through the use of appropriate key words. There are many different words that are similar in meaning, and as many of them as realistically possible should be incorporated into the text, provided that they are words that would commonly be used. People will search under different variations of thoughts and ideas in an attempt to find what they need. Optimizing pages with proper keyword usage is also important for another reason - you want to make sure that the people that are coming to your site are being directed to the page that makes the most sense for them. If they are being sent to a contact page or an ordering page instead of a main product page, it is likely time to look for better keyword optimization so that a natural search produces better results.

C addresses Content. The number of times that a keyword is used, for example, can be an issue. At some point, the search engine algorithms see information as being spam, and they will not index the site highly if this is the case. To avoid this, a keyword should not appear more than 10 times within a 500-word document. This will help to reduce the chances that a particular search engine will negate the content of a site and not rank it well. Also, content should all match in well. Whether it is in the body of the text, the navigation, or the links, keywords and phrasing should match in and relate to other parts of the site as much as possible. This is not always easy to do, but it can be and should be done in order to receive a high ranking in search engines. In addition to these higher search engine rankings, optimizing a site will allow for more sales, better customer retention, and can even lead to Web site awards that are offered by various companies.

Michi Beck is a YouCanSubmit writer. Her personal blog can be found at Content Done Better.