As the principal tool of web navigation, search engines direct surfers to literally tens of millions of sites, and can help already-interested clients find information about your company and services.

As the principal tool of web navigation, search engines direct surfers to literally tens of millions of sites, and can help already-interested clients find information about your company and services. In essence, they are the Yellow Pages of cyberspace - and having your company at the head of a list of search findings is one of the best ways to draw in potential customers.

If you can’t afford to buy a priority listing in search engine’s database, one way you can improve your ranking is through the inclusion of relevant search terms in the text of your page. For instance, if your company specializes in rare jazz and blues recordings, some terms that you might want to include would be: jazz, blues, music, rare, limited edition, collectible, hard to find, used, record, CD, vinyl, and so on.

After drawing up a list of these keywords, settle on a few that you consider more important or indicative than the others; these should make up the title of your page. Continuing with the above example, you might settle on "jazz", "blues", "vinyl" and "rare" as the principal keywords, and call your site "Rare Jazz and Blues on Vinyl." If you’re not sure what the "title" of your page refers to, it’s everything enclosed between the and tags.

Another key part of your page is its meta tags. While your title will be displayed on your page, your meta tags generally won’t, although some browsers use them to supply a description of your page. Your list of keywords will provide you with material, and you should code them as follows:

You should try to keep your list under 300 words, but you should also include all the search terms that you can think of, in order of descending importance.

Using the same list of words, you should also think of a description for your page; this will be displayed to visitors before they enter your site. Like your title, this should be syntactically coherent, but should contain as many keywords as possible, since as a higher keyword density will increase your search positioning. Important tip: for this reason, don’t use generic words like "the", "of", "and" or "it" any more than you have to, and make sure that your description is less than 25 words. It should adhere to the following format:

Finally, while your title and meta tags are the most important determiners of your site’s position, don’t forget that the body of your page will also be searched by most engine. For this reason, try to include as many key words as possible throughout your page.

Remember, though, that search engine positioning isn’t enough to ensure the success of your business. Among many other things, you’ll also need a competitive marketing campaign, a well-positioned product line. What search engine positioning does ensure is that, if someone wants information about your business, they’ll be able to find it. After that, it’s up to you.