You have created your website - uploaded content and images to create a pleasing online environment for your information - and are ready to launch. Yet, for all the relevant content and attractive photos provided, optimization for the search engines will require more than presenting a nice package. The site needs to be optimized for search results, that search users looking for information on your topic are able to find you. For newer sites, age can be a determining factor in how it is ranked among older sites search engine view as more experienced and relevant, yet with proper optimization and implementation good results can be had.

Some factors to consider when optimizing your website for good search rankings include:

Code - Is the HTML code that builds your website valid? Will a search engine spider be able to crawl your front page in its entirety, then go onto the listed sublinks without hitting any walls? Is your code free of dynamic strings that a search engine spider cannot read. If not, is the code altered in a way to keep the dynamic factors of your site without holding up a crawler's ability to mine data from your website?

Content - Is the content you provide on site relative to the site's topic? If paraphrasing from other sources, do you give proper credit? If your content is original, do you make it available to other sites of relevance to use, and do you include your link information? Is your content well-written, free of spelling and grammatical errors? Is there a proper balance of relative keywords that may be targeted in search? Is your content compelling enough to prompt site owners of relative content to link back to you without being asked?

Freshness - How often do you update your website? Do you use a blog to power your site with updated content? Do you syndicate your content through an RSS feed for other sites of relative topics to use? Do you use an RSS feed of relative information on your site to bring updated content to your visitors?

Keywords - How balanced is your use of searchable keywords in your content? Are the keywords used relative to the site's overall content? Are you trying to trick the engines using keywords that are not relevant? Do you use too many keywords, or too few? Do you create anchor link text of searchable keywords, leading users to information deeper within your website?

Links - Do all of the links on your website work? Is every subpage within your site linked back to the home page? Do you have outbound links on your site that lead to relevant information? Have you performed a link popularity check on your site to determine what sites are linking back to yours? Do you seek link building relationships with sites of quality and relevance?

META data - Do you include relevant META tags for keywords and descriptions on your website? Do you use too many META keywords, too few?

Search Friendliness - Overall, how search friendly is your site? Will search engine spiders be able to explore the entire site without running into problems? Does the site look professional, original?

Sitemap - Do you have a sitemap containing links of all subpages in your site? Is it parsed correctly and easy to read? Is a link to the sitemap available on your home page? Do all the links on your sitemap work?

Usability - Is your site's look and feel attractive to the site visitor? Is the site easy to read, easy to navigate? Does a visitor need to click on more than one or two links to find relevant information? Does the site load quickly?

One thing to note about search engine optimization is that there are no set rules. What works for some will not work for all. Take into consideration this list and apply the best of your abilities where needed on your website. Constant care to your website will yield results.

Kathryn Lively (http://www.kathrynlively.com) is an Internet specialist with CINIVA Systems (http://www.ciniva.com) in Virginia Beach, where she consults with businesses with regards to website content.