If you are a webmaster, then you've probably submitted your website to several directories, you may even run one yourself. There are thousands and thousands of directories out there on the net and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. Good webmasters need to be able to evaluate these differences to assess what directories will be worth the time, effort and money to submit to.

It is a well known fact that writing, distributing and posting articles to various location on the web is an extremely effective way to generate targeted traffic and establish yourself as an experienced marketer in your field. Unique articles that help solve the reader's problems, assists the reader in advancing their marketing acumen, or otherwise generally inform tend to stay posted on many web sites throughout the Internet and usually generate targeted traffic for the writer.

In order to further maximize the benefits of writing and posting unique articles, it makes good business sense to optimize the articles so the search engines list the URL's associated with those articles on search engine results pages (SERP's). Ideally, you'd like to see your article URL on the 1st page of the SERP's so you can capitalize on the free and targeted traffic from these listings.

So, what type of strategy can be utilized to optimize your articles for the search engines?

There's quite a few different ways but here are some tactics that you may want to use:

Article optimization tactic 1: Choose keywords that complement your USP and name your article page accordingly.

Contrary to the claims of high-priced SEO firms, optimizing your web site for search engines is not brain surgery. But you must first accept the fact that "spiders" - the search engine programs that read web pages - run away from non-HTML code. This is why the first thing any SEO expert does - before researching keywords or rewriting your copy - is look at your web site code.

If your web pages are full of javascript, graphical navigation buttons, Flash animation, and other glitzy stuff, your odds of ranking high in the search engines sink like a stone. The spiders may never even find your site, let alone start adding your pages to their search results.

If you are like me, you created web site metatags with the help of your Web master. Maybe like me, you didn't spend time or money submitting to search engines because you weren't techie enough.

Now you can optimize your search engine placement these five easy, non-techie ways. My Web site is now # 1 in Google.com and others. If you are in the top ten listings in your category (mine was book coaching) you are in good shape. This placement has put my web site URL on 4700 other sites with a link back to mine. With targeted viral marketing my sales are 30 times what I started with each month--now over $4500.

Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story will prove how I've got top positions (80% on no.1) into the major search engines - such Google, Yahoo!, MSN - without lifting a finger! What is REALLY strange? I did not optimize my page!

But first allow me to give you some backgrounds. Couple of time ago I buy a domain name and hosted into a very reliable server. At that time I intended to build a mini-site around a very powerful service which was released at that period.

Perhaps the simplest of all the lessons I have learned about writing for search engines is to keep my pages simple. That is to say, whether I am thinking about my readers or about Google, there is a huge advantage to keeping most of your pages confined to a single topic.

There are three approaches I take to the creation of a page, and each has a significant impact on how high the listing for that page appears on Google.

Recent studies suggest that more than 80% of new visitors to any web site get there as a result of a search engine query. If this study is to believed, it certainly suggests that working to get high rankings in the search engines might be the most effective thing you can do to bring traffic to your site.

The following 12 design tips will help you get started in optimizing your site's search engine placement.

With apologies for the cheap trick of mentioning Paris Hilton to get your attention, coming to grips with the idea you're about to discover is critically important to your success with search engines!

Because while it's true that there are many factors that determine how well a page ranks in Google - did you know that one stands out above the rest? It's link text. (Also known as anchor text?)

So much so, link text can be the deciding factor when chasing top rankings for extremely competitive keywords.