OPTIMIZE YOUR WEB SITE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By Brian D. Chmielewski mailto:newsletter@webpromote.com At one time or another, I have discussed the importance of optimizing your HTML code for the major search engines. Today I will bring several ideas together in an attempt to crystallize them for improving search ranking. Between 70 and 80 percent of traffic that is driven to your web site originates from the major search engines. That metric indicates traffic, not sales. If most people share my surfing behaviors, they would type in a keyword at a search engine and then sort through the top ten to twenty results, actually clicking through an even smaller percentage. So, listing near the top and speaking to your target audience in the proper way are very important. There are six components of the web page that you should pay strict attention to when preparing a page for listing in a search engine. The first step toward improved listing is selecting the best keywords to do the job. Keywords are the foundation for your presence in the search engines. Applying the same keywords throughout each component is very important, so converging upon a specific collection of keywords is very important. * How do I choose effective keywords? You should already have some idea of the keywords or keyword combinations (keyword phrases) that you will want to use. To get a comprehensive idea of all of the keywords that could assist you with your optimization, there are two things that you should do. First grab an online or print Thesaurus. Investigate synonyms for your original keywords. Write these words down on a sheet of paper. Next, perform searches at each of the major engines for your original keywords and keyword phrases. Pay close attention to the web sites that rank 1 through 10. You will notice that the sites do not always rank in the same location and some do only appear on one engine. View the source code of these pages, looking for patterns and placement of keywords in the