1) Narrow your key words

Say you live in Maryland; instead of “financial planner,” which has SO MUCH competition, focus on “financial planner Maryland”, “financial goals Maryland”, or “pension plan specialist”. You’ll have better luck.

2) File names

Have key words in your web page file names: e.g. call your page financialplanning.htm

3) Key word frequency

Have your key words make up about 5% of words on the page.

4) Hyperlinks

Have your key words in the hyperlinks (the text that’s clickable) on your page

5) Alt Tags

These are in your html code and provide a description on your pictures for browsers that don’t show pictures. Yep – you guessed it – keywords in here too.

6) Reciprocal Links

Have DOZENS of web sites linking to your site. (I’ve only got about 100 linking to one of my main sites, and it’s currently #3 on Google for my major key word). Even better, when they link to you, have them put your keywords,e.g., “financial planner” IN the text of the link!

7) Focus mainly on Google and Yahoo

Get listed there, and the rest of the engines will eventually follow.