Search engines - where do I start?

[EricGen]

Hi,

I am near completion on our site, a php-MySQL ecommerce site. I now want to find out what's best to do for search engines, is it just a matter of meta keywords and submissions? I am completely ignorant about this. Doing a search on Google got me to many search engine optimization tools but Google doesn't recommend using them. Does anybody know where to start? Are there good articles somewhere?

Thanks

[Nick_W]

Hi, Heres a good Primer [webmasterworld.com] for Google. Will work well in general too...

Nick

[EricGen]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was after. It looks like more work than I thought though :-)

Eric

[Nick_W]

Absolutely: Hiring a pro is one way to go of course, there are lots of them right here at WebmasterWorld...

Nick

[Imaster]

When I started out, I was contemplating hiring a SEO, but later figured out that the best way would be to learn the tricks of the trade myself and I am really thankful to a host of sites which have provided great information to me, but of course no one can match WebmasterWorld :)

[Mohamed_E]

EricGen,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Nick_W has pointed you to the best thread; as you see the two things you mentioned (meta keywords and submission) have little or no value today.

Please note the title of the thread: "Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone". It should take much less than a year to implement most of the ideas, but please note that SEO is not an area where you get instant gratification!

[EricGen]

Well thanks everybody, looks like like I found the right forum at last. I'm a C++ programmer by trade and I have developed this site for my wife recently, so I'm afraid I'll probably have plenty more questions :-)