As of December 4th, 1999 up to 67 character domain names can now be purchased versus 23 character domains. This can significantly increase the number of Keywords you can include in a domain name and thereby increase your rankings for those Keywords.

It's believed that Google may prefer larger sites with lots of pages. The thinking is that a site with more content will most likely be of greater value to their visitors. Therefore, make sure your site has plenty of content with links to that content from your home page. This content should reside on your web site, though, and not on other sites.

Your ranking and the ranking of other sites may be influenced by the link "popularity" of the site. This is determined by how many OTHER Web sites link to your own. The more sites that you can get to link to you, the better!

Google is important since it's currently used by Netscape as its default search if matches in Open Directory are not found.

Google looks for other pages that link to your page that use the Keyword in the hyperlink going to your page. Although its better if these links come from other domain names (which also have high link popularity preferrably), there is compelling evidence that even links from your own page to your doorway page can help. Therefore, link to your doorway page from as many other pages in your site as possible and then submit all those pages. You could use hidden text links to do this if you didn't want others to see the links. Be sure to use your important Keywords in the hyperlinks to maximize your results!

Despite Google emphasizing link popularity, it also bases ranking by the content of the page. It requires ALL the words in a query to be physically on the page to consider it a match. Therefore, be sure to use your Keywords on the page. Also make sure the Keywords that might be used together in a search appear together on the page, or are at least are in close proximity to each other.

Obtaining a domain name with your Keyword in it may significantly affect your score. Including the Keyword in a sub-directory name or page name can also help, although not as much. Separate multiple words by dashes, underscores, or slashes in the case of sub-directories. Consider purchasing a secondary domain name for this purpose if ranking well is important to you.

Along with using your Keyword at the top of the page, you might consider using your Keyword at least once near the bottom of your page in the Body area. This can help convey an overall "theme" to the page and may improve your score.