1. NEVER EVER move one single html file or change an URL. Don't you hate it when you click on a link and it says "404 file not found"?
Hitcount grows slowly as others link to you, and as search engine spiders gradually catalog your whole site. Traffic grows exponentially. It doubles, then doubles, then doubles again. The process takes a long time. Don't wipe out all your traffic by doing something stupid. I've seen people move their entire site to a new provider, delete all the pages on their old website, yet only leave a forwarding link on their former top page. VERY stupid. STUNNINGLY stupid. Yet even big companies do this! Are they trying to hide, so web users cannot find them? As far as search engines are concerned, their site has disappeared without a trace. All their google links will say "404 not found," and google will punish them for this major mistake. To google, the new site will be ranked like a newbie's first blog, and it will take months for all the different spiders to index their new site's URL. And even worse, during those months, human web surfers will think that the company has met it's demise, and after a few experiences with 404 errors they will stop clicking on any links that the search engine turns up, even if those links later are repaired.
Another problem: Google finds your sub pages, not your top page. Your site is like a large net, with each page intercepting clicks from many google users. Your top page is only one tiny strand in the net. Most of your visitors will enter via a lower page. Also, other web authors like to link to your "subpages", not to your top page. And so... if you've just bought a domain name and you ABSOLUTELY MUST move your site, you'd better replace every single html file on your old site with a small link to the new location of that page, and then maintain that skeletal site for a year or three. If you don't, then people with links to the "good stuff" inside your site will see those links go bad, and they will delete them. You could lose the majority of your site's users. You'll only be left with the non-serious people who link to the "splash page" at the top of your old site. Very often I'll browse somebody's "amateur science" links and will find that all the links on the page are bad. All except the ones that point to MY pages.
PS, if your site is maintained by another person and you catch them changing the URLs without maintaining the old URLs for many years ...then they're completely incompetent and you should ditch them ASAP. Every changed url is a lost search-engine link, and there's never any justification for changing an URL. Even *thinking* about changing an URL should be grounds for firing a web designer on the spot.
Wait a second.
Forget everything that I just said. Keep moving your site a few times per year, and only leave a forwarding address at the top page of your old site. After all, as long as you cause all your links to become "404 not found", then everyone will delete the links to your site, and they'll only be left with links... to MINE! Heh heh heh.
2. View your site using a 56K modem and with graphics turned off, then redesign it so it's still useful. Never forget: Google is a blind internet user; Google deletes the blind-hostile websites. So, never use java/flash links or non-HTML text content, use "alt" tags on images, and add "summary" to tables, and provide text links that duplicate all your fancy click-map navigation, etc. I say more about this on my WEBPAGE MISTAKES page. Stay compatible with minimal browsers like Opera, don't become a "Flash bigot." You're trying to get MORE users.
3. Maintain a "link farm" of other pages similar to your own. Whenever you find another page to add, email the owner of that page to tell them about it. Don't add cool websites to your browser's "favorites" menu, instead add them to your webpage.
This one above is critical for creating a huge web-presence. First, if the other page-owners know you've linked them, they might add your site to their own links. If they haven't seen your pages before, at least you've attracted a new user. Secondly, after a number of sites all link to each other, they form a "community", and when one page catches a new user, that user can easily find all the other pages too. Third, if any pages in the "community" become high in the search engine rankings, your ranking will also increase. Even better: when no such community exists, and you're the only one who maintains a links collection to similar sites, then even if nobody else links to you, this still will attract lots of people because you've become a "portal" site for that topic area. Don't forget: if you find your "favorites menu" useful, then others will like it too, so put it on the web. Web users would rather browse a list of human-classified links than to run web searches, so your site will become popular with everyone interested in your subject. Think! Would you rather have a librarian on call who can deliver any book you ask for, or would you rather wander in a library? Most prefer wandering the library, because neither you nor your super-searcher- librarian knows which keywords will find the best stuff!
4. Fiercely void using javascript menus, frames, flash navigation, or any other navigation method other than dead-simple HTML.
Pure HTML links will make your page extremely friendly to vision-disabled internet users. But far more important: fancy menu techniques are unreadable by Google and any other search-engine spiders. Search-engines are basically the same as the vision disabled. Google is a blind user. They can only "see" html, and many cannot even handle Frames well. So, if your site navigation links are all part of a Flash program, then all the sub-pages in your site will never appear on any Google search results! (Remember rule number one above: resist the temptation to use fancy stuff. The fancy stuff will hurt you. Fancy stuff is a newbie mistake. )
5. Always add a link to the top of all of your pages which links back to your main site.
If someone uses a search-engine and hits a deep subpage on your site, they will have no clue that the rest of your site exists. You have to provide links! Also, other site-owners may link to subpages on your site. If one of your files gets lots of business from some other site, that file had better have clear links to your site. If it does not, then those users may entirely miss the fact that they are reading just one file on your much larger site.
6. Maintain a "WHAT'S NEW" page.
This will let your repeat-users immediately find the stuff they haven't seen before. Without a "what's new" page, your site may seem exactly the same to everyone who visits, even though you're adding huge amounts to some far corner of your site.
7. Every time you add a separate webpage, submit it to Google's ADD URL page. Other good places are Altavista's add-URL page. Another is the Mozilla Open Directory Project, dmoz.org and Yahoo. These sites share their data with other link archives, so once you get into one of them, your links end up in many others.
OTHER HINTS:
8. When first starting out, don't be tempted to concentrate on impressive layout or exotic HTML and Java features, they will only use up your precious time as well as ruining your search engine ranking. Carefully avoid elevating image over substance. Instead, offer some kind of useful service to internet users. As they say, CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.
