1.      Don’t worry what the Google Toolbar says your PageRank is. Ever since Google released their toolbar that shows a PageRank value for the site you’re viewing, people have become obsessed with their PageRank. Even Google admits that the PageRank value displayed in the toolbar is not accurate. So don’t worry what ranking your site is receiving, it has very little to do with where you site will show up in the search engine results.

2.      Don’t choose a domain name just because it contains your keywords. Many people believe that including keywords in the domain name will help their site rank better. They mistakenly point to several examples of keyword rich domain names ranking in the top spot. However, you have to keep in mind that someone who would go to the trouble of choosing a URL with keywords is most likely using many other SEO techniques, which is why their site is ranking well. The only real advantage to keywords in a URL is that those keywords will then be used in anchor text. For example, if your URL is florida-real-estate.com then people linking to you would most likely make the anchor text “Florida Real Estate”. This keyword rich anchor text would give you a boost in the rankings. When choosing your domain, instead think of something unique that people will remember. After all, this is your business brand and should not be determined simply by which keywords you would like to rank well for.

3.      Don’t worry about your site being spidered every day. Search engine “spiders” visit sites and follow links in order to add the content to the search engine’s database. It can be very exciting to look at your log files and see that a spider is visiting your site every day. But when it comes to rankings, it really doesn’t matter if they come daily or monthly. What’s important is that they come! The only advantage of frequent spidering is if you change your content frequently. Your changes will be added to the search engine index soon after the spider visits so your changes will be available to searchers faster.

4.      Use Google Sitemaps to get your inner pages indexed. Many sites have a problem when it comes to getting their inner pages indexed. Luckily Google has a solution to help webmasters overcome this problem. Google Sitemaps (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps) is an easy to use tool that allows you to tell Google about every page of your site. Although it won’t help your rankings, it may get more of your pages in the index, which could mean more traffic.

5.      Stay up to date with search engine techniques. The world of search engine optimization is constantly changing. Stay on top of the latest news by monitoring the search engine forums. You’ll learn the latest tips and techniques to help your site rank well. Some of the best are http://www.highrankings.com/forum, http://www.searchengineforums.com, http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/ and http://forums.searchenginewatch.com

6.      Only use automated rank checking software that uses the Google API. There are several software applications available that make it easy for you to check your rankings (and the rankings of your competitors) in Google. If you’re using one of these applications, be sure that you first get a free Google API. Failing to do so puts you at risk of having your IP banned from searching Google. An even better option is to run your automated queries on AOL instead since they use Google’s results but don’t have the same rules.

7.      Find out what your competitors are doing. Although the information does not come cheap, there are services that provide very detailed reports on your competitors including the traffic they get, what keywords generate that traffic and from which search engines.

8.      Be careful not to over optimize your pages. When it comes to optimizing your site for the search engines, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. The search engines have begun penalizing sites that are “over optimized”. Remember, their goal is to display the most relevant results and they’re on the lookout for anyone trying to manipulate their results for their own gain. Always keep in mind that you’re designing a site for humans, not search engines. If you make decisions that are in the best interest of your visitors, chances are you won’t be seen as a spammer by the search engines.

9.      Be prepared for Google’s aging delay. It’s not uncommon for new sites to take 6 - 12 months before they appear in the Google results pages. This has been dubbed the “aging delay” by some SEO experts. So why does this aging delay exist? It is believed that it is Google’s answer to mini-networks and other multi-site strategies intended to artificially inflate link popularity. Many people divide what should be a single site into multiple sites in order to capitalize on the links that are exchanged between them. Others build a series of small sites that are only designed to add link popularity to the main site. By delaying the ranking of brand new sites, the mini-network strategy becomes more of a long-term strategy than a quick jump to the top. Site owners who might have started new sites are going to be more inclined to build new pages on existing sites in order to avoid that delay.

10.  Get your site up, even if it’s not complete. The search engines seem to favor older sites. This is most likely because older sites are more likely to be viable businesses. The clock starts ticking when the spider first becomes aware of your site. So when developing a new site, it’s a good idea to get something up at your domain right away, even if it’s not your finalized pages.

11.  Don’t assume an Adwords campaign will improve your natural search rankings. It is an SEO myth that running an Adwords campaign will give a boost to your natural search engine rankings. Although PPC can be a great advertising option, there is no proof that it will help you rank better.

12.  Register your site for longer than one year at a time. There is some evidence that the search engines, particularly Google, give more weight to sites that have a URL that is registered for longer than one year. The reasoning behind this is that if you own a legitimate site you will plan to be in business indefinitely. Whereas spammers tend to use domains for a few months only and then move on to a new one.

13.  Use the robots.txt file properly. A robots.txt file can be used to prevent the search engine spiders from indexing certain pages on your site. For example if you have a download page for your product, you would not want it to be indexed and displayed in the search results. .

14.  Get indexed in Yahoo! quickly. A quick and easy way to get indexed in Yahoo! is to create an account and add your own site to your list of sites you want to watch. In order to keep track of when there are changes to your site, Yahoo! has to visit it.

15.  Get indexed quickly with a link on a frequently updated page. How often a search engine visits a site is usually related to how often the content is updated. To have your site found quickly, get a link from a site that is spidered frequently. Otherwise you may wait months before the search engines even find you. A great option is to get a link on an established blog since the search engines know that they typically have new content added regularly.

16.  Make it easy for the search engines to spider your site. The search engine spiders are relatively stupid. They have been programmed to grab HTML from the pages they find, but are unable to properly read flash, frames, text in images and long and messy dynamic URLs. Help the search engines properly interpret your site by avoiding these elements.

17.  Have an SEO evaluation done. Unsure whether you’ve done everything you can to optimize your site? There are several experts that offer SEO evaluations to help identify areas you’ve overlooked. Although you can expect to pay between $600 and $2000 depending on the size and complexity of your site, the advice may be what it takes to improve your rankings significantly. In many industries, a top ranking site can earn thousands of dollars a day.

18.  Let the search engines find you naturally instead of submitting your site. The best way to make sure the search engines know about your site is to get links on relevant sites, directories and blogs and let them follow those links to find your site. Although all of the major search engines have submission forms and state that no site will be penalized for using them, most SEO experts agree that getting links is the better approach.

19.  Design your pages with customers in mind. Sites should never be designed only for search engines. Once a customer arrives, your pages have to be designed in such a way as to convert him or her into a customer. If they land on your page and cannot make sense of it because it’s designed for search engine spiders instead of real people, you’re not going to be any further ahead. And as the search engine spiders become more advanced, they’re learning how to spot pages that are useless to customers.

20.  Learn from successful sites in your industry. One of the best ways to find out how to break into the 10 search engine results is to watch what the people who are already holding those spots are doing. What keywords are they using? How are they using those keywords? What type of content does their site contain? How many links and what type of links do they have? What is their internal navigation structure like? These are just some of the many questions to ask as you study your competitors’ sites. Keep detailed notes in a spreadsheet as you evaluate everyone in the top 10 for the keywords you’re optimizing for. You will most likely see some patterns that you can use to improve your own site

21.  Don’t create different versions of your site. There are times when it may seem to make sense to have more than one site. For example, if you sell your products to different groups of people. But instead of having multiple sites, create one large one with different sections aimed at your different target audiences. You’ll have more content and more keywords on your site using this approach, which will help your search engine rankings.

22.  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The search engines are continually working on improving their algorithms. And with each improvement there are changes made to the rankings. If your traffic is dependent on where you rank in the search engines you may be in a bad situation if they change your position. A smart business decision is have a variety of different traffic generation techniques such as links on other sites, PPC advertisements, articles published on other sites and paid banner ads.

23.  Be patient, it takes time to rank well. It’s not uncommon for it to take 6 months or more before a site shows up in the major search engines. So if your site doesn’t show up immediately, don’t assume something is wrong and start making drastic changes. The best course of action is to create your pages using good on-page optimization techniques and then work on getting links. While you’re doing this forget about the search engines and focus on building the best site you can for your visitors. If your site is as good as it can be, the search engines will rank you well!

24.  Understand the importance of both on-page and off-page factors. When it comes to determining a site’s ranking, the search engines take into consideration both on-page and off-page factors. On-page factors are the elements you can control on the page including the copy, meta tags, keywords, etc. Off page factors are what happens outside of your site and primarily include links. For terms that are not very competitive you can typically achieve high rankings simply using good on-page factors. However, for more competitive terms, off-page factors are becoming increasingly important. Ensuring you have a combination of the two is the best approach to optimizing your site.