Are you frustrated because you can not find the "magic" formula to get your web pages the great search engine placement they deserve? I am going to share a little secret with you.

There is no magic formula.

There never has been and I doubt there every will be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either far smarter than the rest of us or deluding themselves. It is that simple.

Now I can hear some of you asking, "So Tony, if there is no formula, should we just give up? Be content with whatever poor placement we get and go on with our lives?"

My reply to those questions is an emphatic, NO! Instead of looking for that once and for all magic formula, realize that what gets good placement is what makes good web pages, solid fundamentals. Rather that expecting someone to wave a magic wand and guarantee you a great placement for your pages, expect to put some real work into it. Below are listed some of the most important things you can do to improve the chances of good placement in the search engines.

1. Every page should have an HTML header section which contains a title tag, as well as the description and keywords meta tags.
2. Include your keywords in the title, description and keywords tags. Separate keywords with spaces, not commas.
3. Don't repeat keywords more than three times in tag. To do so could trigger the search engines Spam penalties.
4. Keyword stuffing, or putting keywords in the keywords tag that have nothing to do with the content of the page, may also trigger Spam penalties. As a general rule, if the keyword doesn't appear in the text of the page, do not put it into the keywords tag.
5. Fewer, more relevant keywords is better than many less relevant ones. If you wish to increase your page's placement, focus on a few relevant keywords. More pages can be written to focus on other keywords you may wish to address.
6. Include the most important keywords in a header line, preferably on the first line of the page.
7. Repeat the keywords frequently in the first three hundred or so words of content. Some search engines give more weight to the first portion of the page than to everything else that follows.
8. Use the keywords naturally in throughout the remained of the page's content.
9. Avoid the "invisible text" tricks. These include text that is the same color as the background and extremely tiny text located way down at the bottom of the page. The search engine algorithms are long since wise to these tricks and their use practically guarantees the Spam penalties will be triggered.
10. Always submit your pages to the major search engines by hand. These submissions are too important to leave to a program.
11. Use the submission programs to submit to the minor search engines only.
12. Check the rules of each of the major search engines. If they permit it, submit every page of your site, one page per day until completed.
13. Be patient. It is currently taking some of the major search engines six to eight weeks to update their listings. If the submitted pages do not begin to appear after eight weeks, consider reworking the pages.
14. Never resubmit the same page twice! Most search engines give greater consideration to pages they perceive as new. In fact, some search engines consider resubmitting the same page repeatedly to be spamming and assess their Spam penalties. Make changes to the page before resubmitting it.
15. Once the page makes it to the top fifty, don't mess with it. One of the greatest temptations is to tinker with the page to try to get that coveted top ten spot, but more often than not this backfires and drops the page out of the top fifty altogether.

Apply each of these tips to every one of the pages in your website. Make note of which pages place well and which ones do not seem to get listed at all. Learn from the mistakes, improve the pages that do not place well and resubmit them. Patience and persistence are your greatest allies. Stick with it, apply these tips to every page you create and enjoy the improved placement results that you are bound to see.

Tony L. Callahan, is a successful Internet Promotions Consultant with more than twenty years of industry experience and is president of his own Internet marketing company, Link-Promote. He also publishes Web-Links Monthly, a newsletter full of tips, tricks, tools and techniques for successful web site promotions. To subscribe, send e-mail to: Web-Links-subscribe@topica.com.