So you've sat down and created your masterpiece, the pièce de résistance of websites. You're proud of your accomplishment after weeks, possibly months of toil, and it's getting close to seeing the light of day. We all know the truth: - a website is never finished, but it's important to get your site off to the best possible start.

So knowing a little bit about these things, you gleefully submit your site too every search engine you can find, taking particular care to cover the big boys (Google,Yahoo! Search, MSN Search).

At this point you're thinking in a matter of days your site will be crawling with visitors sucking up that 50 gig of bandwidth you happily dished out for, and clicking on every affiliate link you've managed to squeeze onto the 47 pages that make up your site.

3 months down the road and the reality is very different. You're initial excitement has subsided, replaced by sluggish visitor logs, non existent comments on your articles, and a complete lack of visibility on the search engines. Utterly dejected you throw in the towel and head back to the Xbox for comfort.

STOP! It doesn't have to be this way.

With a little bit of tweaking and a little bit of networking you CAN and WILL see your site rise to the top of the search engines (or close to it). You're not afraid of getting your hands dirty are you?. Pack up the Xbox and let's get down to business.

First, there's a term you need to become familiar with. Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is the science, of optimizing your website for the best possible results in the search engines. Optimization is not single act, but an ongoing process of analyzing your website, its basic design (code), visitors and partners, links both inbound and outbound, and keyword structure

There is an army of specialists on the web, that doing nothing but optimize sites for their clients, but it doesn't have to be the realm of professionals until you get VERY serious about your website and are prepared to fork out the dollars for that level of service.

The articles and resources on this site give your a great overall idea, but its only a fraction of what's available on the web and it's wise to read anything remotely related to the subject. SEO is a gradual process and immediate results are rare, but if you stay focused and systematically implement the tips throughtout this site, your site will enjoy a new lease on life.