There is no unanimous opinion on how to optimize a website, but certain principles are generally accepted. Here are some of these principles:

1. Do some keyword analysis to define a set of keywords (which I refer to as your “keyword group”) that range from your most general theme to more specific sub-themes. For example, if your site is about “golden retriever puppies” this term, along with two or three other closely related terms should provide the focus for your home page.

2. Your home page is usually considered your site’s most important page, so it should be optimized for your most important keywordS - as mentioned above. Your home page should be more general in content and emphasis, with links pointing to more specific sub-sections within your site. In other words, organize your home page around the most general (small) set of keywords you want to rank well for.

3. Create internal pages focused around specific keywords related to those emphasized on your home page. For example, you may have sub-sections within your site on topics such as:

- golden retriever puppy care
- buying a golden retriever puppy
- toys for golden retriever puppies
- best features of golden retriever puppies
- etc.

Each of these pages should focus on a narrow set of keywords related to (and linked to) the home page, and all the other pages within your site.

4. You need simple navigation tools - such as a nav-bar - to interlink your pages. These links are important, both for navigation purposes and for SEO purposes. These are seen as inbound links and they help form a “neighborhood” of related resources. Neighborhoods are good in the eyes of the search engines. The SEs assume that a neighborhood of closely related resources contains more information than isolated pages.

5. Expand your neighborhood by creating resources in other places and linking back to your main site using specific anchor text. For example, you could create a Squidoo page (Hub page, Knol, Wordpress blog…) about “toys for golden retriever puppies” and link back to your main website. You could also write an article about “buying a golden retriever puppy” and link back to your main website. Then upload it Ezinearticles.com and several other article sites. Or you could create a video demonstrating the “best features of golden retriever puppies”, link back to your main site, and then upload the video to Youtube.com, Revver.com, Google Video, etc.

This way you expand your “neighborhood” of tightly related resources. These days that’s what “link building” or “getting links” is all about.

Check out the Link Builder Network, launching August 15/08.