That might not actually be the case since if you've already gotten yourself in Google's rankings through a keyword, you could still probably have hope. If your web site deals with that particular topic, you could then improve your rankings without having to spend anything. And how is this done exactly? First, you'll find about how highly you're ranked for that particular keyword.

Know About Your Keyword Placement in Google

With the Google Rankings site at www.googlerankings.com, you can learn where you are in the list. This can be quite a useful tool if you employ it properly. If you are placed in the first thousand, you could improve your ranking by orienting your page for much greater relevance.

Have Search Traffic Approximations

You should then know about the amount of visits you might get. With Digital Point, you can have a free program that allows you to estimate the number of visits each day that high rankings might then get. It's at www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion.

Have Keyword Optimization

The next step involves using the term you've picked and then having your page optimized with that term. With GoRank.com, you'll be able to check for continuous ratings on search engines. You also would get suggestions on what Yahoo or Google might want.

Figure out The Keyword Density Your Site Should Have

After knowing the number of visits you wish to get, you should then find out about how Google will rate your page and you do this by calculating the density of your keywords. This step is also available at GoRank.com with a program that figures out the density. Create your page knowing about these things and you're nearly finished with the work.

Submitting Your Site

Manual search engine submissions to get placed in directories aren't required anymore but it still would be an ideal thing to do because:

* Having links to the site would allow spiders to place your site in their index. * Inbound links are what search engines look for in rating your site.

These search engines would know about your site even without you doing any submissions. As long as there are links leading to your site, the search engines will find your site. But there are several good directories that you would want to submit to:

* The Open Directory at http://www.dmoz.org/ * Yahoo Directory at http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

The Popularity of the Link

The best tool for SEO is link popularity as majority of engines would not rank sites if that site does not have even a link or two leading to it. To have some other web site pointing to the site you own helps you achieve a better site ranking.