Content. Unique, informative and well-written content which can be easily indexed by the major search engines is the first priority. JavaScript and textual content within image files cannot be read by robots. Some progress has been made in reading and indexing textual content within Flash.

Keyword Density. Although not considered as important as it once was, keyword density is another factor to evaluate. Keyword density is a ratio representing the number of times a keyword phrase appears on a page compared to the total number of words on that page. If the keyword density is too low, the phrase is not given enough importance and if the keyword density is too high, it is interpreted by robots as an attempt to manipulate organic search engine results -- otherwise known as keyword spamming.

You can check your keyword density by entering your URL into the Keyword Density Tool found at SEO Tools. If you're not sure what words or phrases a potential customer may submit to a search engine to find your service or product, you may find it helpful to use the Keyword Suggestion Tool also found at SEO Tools.

Meta Tags. Meta tags play an important role in proper indexing. The title and description meta tags in the header section of your document should uniquely and accurately describe the content on each page. Avoid using the same title and description on each page. Embed some of your keyword phrases in the Title and Description content to describe what your site is about but avoid over use of keyword phrases as this can be interpreted as "spamming". It is recommended that these tags be kept relatively short; about 60 characters or less for the Title and 150 characters or less for the Description.

Heading Tags. Use the h1, h2, h3, h4, etc. header tags in place of the title tag to identify major sections within your web page. More emphasis is placed on the content within these tags since these tags summarize the content in each section of your web page. Include keyword phrases in your header tags but ensure the header text is written so that it reads naturally and is not stilted or stuffed with keyword phrases.

Duplicate Content. Duplicate content should be avoided since most search engines penalize a site for this practice. After initially creating a website or developing new content for your website, it is a good practice to run a utility like http://www.copyscape.com/ to determine if you have inadvertently copied someone else's material. If necessary, rewrite and republish your content.

Naming Conventions. File, folder and image file naming conventions can include some of your keyword phrases in the file names to aid search engines in understanding what your site is about. The recommended practice today is to use a hyphen as a separator between words in the file name in lieu of an underscore, space or no separator at all.