Search engines have been the primary marketing tool for thousands of online marketers. Top ranking is the basic objective for many commercial sites and the topic for many debates and arguments. Since search engines change their algorithms all the time you can not have the solid and certain system which ensures the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately Top-10 ranking is not an easy task and if you are not the CEO of a search engines Optimization Company, you have at least to avoid some basic mistakes most people do when they deal with them.

1) Not using your keywords in your TITLE TAG.

This is a killer mistake. If your business is about pets and you put in your title tag just your company?s name then you won?t stand a chance of getting top ranking in search engines. You must use your business? name and the primary keyword. For example:

You should also avoid overwriting keywords in your title tag. 8 words max is enough. Everything beyond from that will terminate your top listing.

2) SUBMITTING TO FFA FOR MASSIVE LINK POPULARITY.

Just DON?T. Submitting to 600.000 FFA and classifieds won?t get you anywhere. These links are useless and the only thing you can expect is a permanent ban from the search engines or directory.

3) NO CONTENT.

Don?t expect to have top placement with a bunch of affiliate links in your website. The algorithms are very well designed and ban these kinds of web pages. You must have content. Articles, e-books, software, information or whatever you think is appropriate and relative with your site.

4) DO NOT OVERDO IT WITH OPTIMIZATION.

You may have heard the importance of optimization for your web site but don?t overdo it. You should keep the balance. The search engines are smarter than you think and will lower your site?s position for that.

5) NAME YOUR WEB PAGES WITH YOUR KEYWORDS-KEYWORD PHRASES.

Name your web pages after your important keyword phrase. For example if your keyword phrase is ?car accessories? then name your page

Car-accessories.html e.t.c.

6) REMOVE META TAGS

Remove the unnecessary meta tags like date, author e.t.c. You should use only the META REFRESH tag and the META DESCRIPTION tag.

7) NOT TOO MANY LINKS.

Limit the number of links on every web page to 50. If you have more try to divide them to more pages or keep the most important links.

8) USE A SITE MAP

A site map is a page which contains the structure of your site. It?s important to have one in your home page because the engines can spider your site?s sub pages and index your entire site.

Chris Varsamis has been online marketer since 1998 and he is the owner of the online publication www.ezine-affiliate-marketing.com.