What Google Wants

It's the 64 million dollar question: "What Does Google Want?"

No one really knows. Afterall, Google considers more than 100 different elements in its search engine ranking algorithm.

However, you'll go far if you focus your SEO energy on these five areas:

Keywords. Research and use the best possible keywords in your website. Use researching tools such as Wordtracker and, yes, study your competition. What keywords are they focusing on?

Write Good Copy. You don't need to completely redesign your website (unless it's in Flash or Frames), but develop some good content for your site's pages. Use those good keywords that you've researched in Step No. 1 above.

Write Fresh Content. Don't just let your website sit there and get stale. Write fresh content about your products, services, staff. Publish your press releases and company information. Write industry articles. Search engine spiders love fresh content. Feed them!

Create Backlinks. Although this takes time, it's worth it. Developing a link building program goes hand-in-hand with getting your site ranked higher in Google and other search engines. Backlinks are one-way links from other websites and Directories pointing to your website.

Create a Sitemap. Not only is this good for visitors to your website, but search engine spiders like it as well. It helps them find all of the pages in your website.