Before we begin, make sure you have a good set of keywords for your site. You may want to use some online tools to help you pick a list of at most 20 keywords. Keyword selector tools show how many people search for a given term, and some similar competitive words. Choose keywords that are as specific as you can be to your sites genre, but still general enough to have people search for the terms. After you have a good set of keywords, lets get started on areas to optimize on your site.

Title Tags ? The title tag is one of the most important factors in the optimization of a site. Search engines try to assert a category or genre to each website, so the title tag should include one or two main keywords for your site, describing what it is for.

Content (keyword density) ? To bring a site into the 'goldilocks zone' of keyword density, you want your three most relevant keywords to each have a density of about 3-7% of the page. This lets search engines know what type of information is on your page. Overuse of keywords can count against you as 'spam'. A 'jack of all trades' type of website with many different subjects is much more difficult to optimize for specific keywords than a website solely about those keywords.

Content (keyword prominence) - Information farther near the top of the page takes a higher importance in determining what your page is about. Include keywords as much as they sound appropriate in this area.

Headings in H1, H2, H3 ? Heading text on your website is read as more important than normal text by search engines. Headings 1-3 are read, with 1 being the most important. Include keywords for the page the heading is on, and make sure it is a good description of what the page is about.

Link text ? The text that links to other pages in a hyper-link, also known as anchor text, is important to include keywords in. Avoid using the words "click here" or "more info", as search engines don't have any way to tell what that link goes to. Link text is also VERY important in incoming links to your site.

Image File Names ? Naming your files using keywords allows you to optimize one more area of your site. Folders that hold images can have keywords, as well as the image names themselves.

Meta Tags ? Slowly being outdated, META tags let you set certain pieces of information for your website including: description, keywords, site language, copyright information and more. Some search engines have stopped reading META tags because of their keyword analysis tools that give a better impression of whats on the page than META.

Alt Tags ? Search engines cannot read images. In the HTML code for the image, you can add an alternate text that is displayed to text-based browsers, and search engines. The alt text should include one keyword, and maybe a word describing the picture.

With a good selection of keywords, optimization of the areas listed above is guaranteed to get you higher search engine rankings. This guide shows how to optimize a website, but does not include link building- another important aspect of search engine placement. Once your page is optimized, start submitting to search engines!