Hi.

Here are 7 tips that can help you.:)

1. Keyword Optimization:

The idea behind this is that people search using keywords like "granite installation", by highlighting and repeating the words "granite installation" in your site, you basically tell the Google spider that your page is relevant to the search phrase.

HOWEVER

Keep in mind that there are a lot of other blogs and more importantly company sites that are competing for the traffic that the keyword "Granite installation" brings in. If most sites are more relevant than yours, your sites will not show up in SERPS.

(check Google keyword tool to see how many are competing for the same keyword and how many searches are being done using this keyword)

WHAT TO DO?

Do not compete for keywords that many people are using. This is just like lining up where the most people are instead of where you can be first. Instead, try to look for keywords that less competitors are using for their sites in order to rank better in that term. Instead of "bathroom remodel", you might like to try out other terms that are more geo-specific like "bathroom remodel arizona". You can also use longer keywords (this is the long tail theory of SEO) that are less used like "bathroom remodeling services in arizona".

You’ll find out that you’ll get more traffic and rank higher if you use the bottom 70% least used keywords in your product category than if you use the top 30% most used keywords in searches where you’ll have lots of competition in the SERPS.

a word of WARNING though.

Dont overuse your keywords. Once in the title and 3-4 times in the body is enough. Oversaturating your blog post with keywords (more than 10% of total word count) is a good way to let Google know that you are spamming keywords and this will rank you lower in the SERPS.

2. SITE FOCUS

Try to focus on only one main theme for the content in your website. Talking about remodeling on hand and car accesories on other posts is a good way to dilute the relevance of your site when it comes to SERPS. By focusing on one and only one main topic, you basically tell search engines that you’re a GURU on that niche.

3. Optimize Site structure and Script

Do Siloing in your site structure, this means more organized keyword optimized menus.

Use a sitemap: so that the spider can better index your site’s pages

Use html: spiders read html best and flash sites worst. put page content near first 25k of a page.

optimize metatags: use important keywords for anchor texts.

Deep link: link pages together in the site

4. Domain Name URL

If you haven’t registered a domain name/URL yet, try registering a domain name with your city name in it.

Ex.
arizonaremodeling.com
arizonabathroomremodeling.com
arizona-tiles.com

this not only makes it easier for your customers to remember your website address, it also makes it easier for your site to rank well in search engines.

Moreover, you’ll also get type in traffic (people who type in their search queries directly into their browsers) if your domain name is generic.

5. Have a lot of good local content in your site.

Lots of content in your site increases its relevance and thus your site’s search engine ranking. Make sure that you optimize the keywords in your content though to make it easier for spiders to index your pages.

People generally type in geo-targetted search phrases when searching for local businesses.

Ex:

Best restaurants in chicago
cheapest hotel rates in Michigan
car rental companies in Seattle

(you can look at Google keyword tool for keywords and average number of searches that people type in when looking for info on your city)

By having lots of content relevant to people looking for information on a specific city, not only does it tell search engines that your site is the best authority to deliver the required info, it also encourages return traffic and referrals for your site.

6. Register your site in online directories and yellow pages. This are also sites that locals frequent when looking for specific businesses.

These are also great sources for backlinks to your site. Which will help your site’s search engine rankings.

7. Post articles in article directories.

You benefit from the massive traffic of these sites and your content will have a better chance of achieving high search engine rankings. Moreover, you can also place a link in your resource box here linking to your site (backlinks to improve rankings)

There are a lot more things you can do to optimize your site for SEO. It’s hard work typing though, he he. Feel free to contact me if you need any more help.

OCS
http://www.onlinecreativesolutions.com

I have written a couple of seo guides but the main you need to do, in order to get SE traffic is:

-you need inbound links for your keywords, the more you have the better
-quality links with atleast page rank 1
-do on page and off page optimization

find out more at my site

Google is based on backlinks. "Page Rank" which was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, ranks websites based on many things, but the most important of them is Net Popularity. The more links from big websites(youtubes, myspaces, yahoos, msn’s etc.) to your website, the more your website is viewed by Google as being popular. When someone searches for a phrase that is related to my website, my website is usually #2 on the list. I dont think I will ever be #1 because my competitor who is #1 has about 13,000 backlinks and keeps building new ones everyday. He started about 10 years before I did so unless he just quits one day, I doubt I will ever be #1. You want to do it in a non spammy way. For example, I have a few videos on youtube and in my comments section for the videos, I put a link to my site that is related to the videos. I have a myspace profile and I put a link in there as well. You can put a link in your profile here on yahoo too. As long as its one link on myspace, one link on yahoo etc., its not spamming. Blogs are good to build backlinks because most blogs on blogger let you comment on the blog and they ask you for your website url. So when you comment, your name is clickable and if people click on your name, it leads them to your site. Thats counted by google as a backlink and google owns blogger so thats the ultimate as far as big sites go. But as I said before, you dont want to spam. Google can sense spammers sometimes and your website will be dropped all together from google if they catch you doing that. I dont use meta tags at all. Thats a waste of time now. Ive written alot of articles at places like associatedcontent and ezinearticles which lead back to my site too.

A ranking or search order does take place with Google
and Yahoo and it begins with the "Title" metag which
should consist of no more than 65 characters separated
by commas. The "Title" should describe in generic
terms, the goods and services, followed by a location
from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state.
The placement of a domain name which is not generic
within the "Title" is not appropriate, unless your
domain name is a major recognizable brand name.

The second metatag is the "Description" which is
usually 25-30 words to form a complete sentence which
best describes one’s goods and services.

And the very last category – "Keywords" are also
somewhat limited to 15-16 words which can be plural
and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries
which could be mistaken as "spamdexed entries" which
is defined as the loading, and submission of
repetitive words into a particular metatag category.
"Spamdexing" when discovered on a webpage and reported
to Google’s spamreport.com can result in the
elimination of your website from their search
directory.

Good luck!