For a website to be successful it must be findable on the most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Will over 300 million websites competing for top search engine listing, this is no easy task...
The search engine exists for the sole purpose of connecting a searcher with what they're searching for. That's all. Since customers hate to be pointed to a site that doesn't give them what they want, it is imperative that your website is focused on your real products services, and company. It is easy to get sidetracked with information about where you are from, what you think and what you feel, but if your prospect cannot easily find the information they want about the products they want, they are gone and lost forever!
Most search engines are programs which scour websites to see what they offer, then send people there that are searching for that information. Some of the things checked are the URL (page address), content, and (fading quickly into extinction) metadata. Since customers use certain words and phrases in their searches, the search engines look for these \"keywords\" in these scans. If you keep keywords in mind when putting your site together you can make yourself rank high in their searches. However, search engine programs cannot read pictures, PDF files, and flash video. Therefore, make sure you have lots of text that focuses on your keywords so you can delight both your readers and the search engine programs.
The URL is checked for relevance. If the title doesn't match the content, your rank will go down. Also, words strung together in a title like thisisthebesttitleavailable.com are seen as one word by most search engines. BAD JUJU. Stay away from this if you can. Better: this-is-the-best-title-available.com. Putting searched keywords in your title separated by dashes will score very high in the engines ranking formulas (i.e.: widget-source.com or widget-discount-store.com). (hiring a professional can help a lot here)
Content is what you say to your visitors. If you sell widgets, the information put on your website should be all about widgets. Since you can't predict what exact phrase will be used by your buyers, you will want a lot of different variations of appropriate keywords used in your site. However, overdoing it can dilute your search capability and may even get you blacklisted (lost and gone forever) (Hiring a pro here will help too)
Metadata is basically textual information about your site which the visitors never see. It's strictly there for the earlier models of search engines and, since it has been abused, is fading into non-existence. Because of this, I wouldn't stress too much on it. But if you use metadata keywords, make sure they can be found in the website text (or you will be blacklisted).
You website has to load quickly! Have you ever heard of the 3 second rule? Fact is, if your site doesn’t load in 3 seconds, your prospects are on to the next, probably your competitor, buying their products instead of yours.
I hope this helps you get "The Big Picture." Keep you website clear, concise, and focused on your product, service or company. And use text liberally and pictures or splash sparingly.