Just because there are millions of websites on the internet and thousands are added each day, don't think it is impossible to get your website ranked highly in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines and directories. In fact, if you're willing to put in some time, it's not tough at all. Remember, not many websites are going to be competing for the keywords for which you seek high rankings. Even most of the sites which include your keywords will be little competition for you. For example, if you have a comprehensive site about gardening, you should easily rank ahead of someone whose website merely lists gardening as a hobby.

The fact is, not many of the webmasters who seek rankings for the same keywords you've chosen will be formidable competition either. Most don't know enough, and many others will think there job is complete after a few months of promotion. It's not.

Are you motivated enough to spend a few hours a week working on your search engine rankings for the life of your website? If so, you have a good chance of being a big winner in the search engine ranking games. Below are the five activities in which you need to be engaged.

1. Review your meta tags and make changes if necessary. There are any number of websites offering meta tag tips...many will actually create tags for you. Be sure your top keyword or top two keywords appear in your title tag, with your best keyword first, if possible. Be inclusive in the keyword tag, but don't "stuff" it and don't list keywords that don't appear on your site at least twice. List keywords in order of importance. Your description tag should be written to draw surfers in.

2. Sign up for a few of the many good website promotion email newsletters. You can learn all kinds of techniques and tips from folks who spend all day promoting websites. I especially recommend Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/ and LED Digest http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/. If you have time, read the archives as well as the new issues.

3. Add social bookmark icons to your website so your visitors can use them to help you promote it. One of the sites offering free icons is http://www.social-bookmark-script.com/generator.htm.

4. Create brief (250-350 word) articles related to the subject of your website or closely related subjects. Then, submit your articles to at least 15-20 article submission websites...more if possible. You can submit manually, but I recommend that you use a service or buy submission software allowing you to submit to well over 500 sites. It's worth the minimal investment required...here's why. With an author's box which includes a link to your site, like my author's box below, every webmaster who reprints your article will be giving you a link; a link that can help raise your rank in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. And, one article can generate hundreds of links for you. If you write a few slightly different versions of each article, you can get an even better search engine "bump" when they are published.

5. Engage in an ongoing, aggressive link building campaign. Submit your sites to at least the four or five top search engines and every relevant directory with reasonably high Google Page Rank. Then, use a tool like the one on http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/ to see which sites link to your competitors, and ask them to link to you. Or, you can hire an agency (including the one who offers the free tool listed above) to obtain links for you.

The five activities above, in my considered opinion, represent the best ways to promote your site. There are other ways as well...you might want to try them too. But, if you engage in the activities suggested here, you'll stand a great chance of achieving significant search engine ranking gains...the kind of gains that can ensure the success of your site.