As anyone who works at making their living online knows, having a successful website that generates continual income for you is not a matter of luck. You have to get noticed by those who need your products and services, and the only way to get noticed is by finding a way to get the top of the search engine rankings. In fact, the most successful websites - and the most profitable - are those that consistently manage t earn a top search engine ranking from sites like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
The question, of course, is how to get that top search engine ranking. While you may see many offers for search engine optimization (SEO) that can "quickly" get you to the top of the rankings, the fact is that almost all of those methods involve the type of black hat tactics that search engines will eventually catch - and for which your site is likely to be banned altogether. There is only one surefire way to garner a top ranking, and it involves doing the right things with your site - and being patient.
Those right things involve both the structure and content of your website. Having multiple pages that are properly linked together can facilitate the search engine spiders' progress through your site, which they will reward with increased attention in the rankings. In addition, determining which keywords work best with your website - and using them appropriately on your site - will enable those spiders to more easily classify your site's content.
And speaking of content, there should be plenty of it on your website. Articles, information, and other content must be updated on a regular basis and must be relevant to the site's focus. It is also a good idea to submit articles to various registries - all of which contain links back to your website. The increased exposure on other sites will catch the attention of the search engines and improve your rankings.