Step 1: Focus on Content and Code

Add Interactivity

By using widgets, you can add functionality to your site to increase user interactivity without any programming knowledge. Widgets also allow you to add additional value to your site through content and other information pieces, such as headlines, news, audio and video, and games.

To get started with widgets, browse through these sources:

• WordPress Widgets
• WidgetBox
• TypePad Widgets
• Widgets Lab
• MySpace Widgets

Don't overdo it though—too many widgets can increase your load time and add clutter. White space generally increases readability (which is why you should increase your line height as mentioned previously), so choose your widgets carefully.

Create Clean Code

A well-built site has benefits for both your readers and search engines. For your readers, a site built according to web standards:

• makes your site accessible to those with disabilities, those using non-standard browsers such as browsers on mobile devices and those using browsers other than Internet Explorer, which represents roughly 40% of the market.
• considers the visitor first and engages your customer in the content.

For the search engines, a quality web site:

• helps the crawler-bots to find all of your content through linking.
• helps the search engine index all of your content properly for search purposes.

Make Your Site Search-Engine Friendly

Here are some coding and content rules to follow when making your site search-engine friendly:

• Use CSS wisely
  Use CSS (stylesheets) to replace text with an image if it contains important information, or at least use alt tags on your images, so that search engines will not skip over your graphics. (Better yet: don't put important information in your graphics!)
• Be careful with JavaScript
  Avoid using Javascript to display text or menus. Search engines will not be able to follow these links, and will end up only partially indexing your site.
• Submit your site to the top search engines
  See Step 5 in this series to learn how. You can also go a step farther by creating a site map of your site and giving it to the major search engines so they can index you.
• Write for humans first and computers second
  As search engine algorithms get more and more complex, relevant content will score higher, and sites employing "search engine tricks" will score lower. This is why you should use natural language when writing your content.
• Optimize for search engines last
  See Step 8: Optimize Your Site for Search Engines in the 11 Steps to Create a Successful Website series for optimization tips.

Need more help with coding and search engine optimization? Try these:

• StartupNation's 11 Steps to Create a Successful Website
• Search Engine Optimization from Wikipedia
• Google's tips for Recognizing Bad SEO Practices