Search Engine Optimisation

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There are many ways to improve a websites search ranking, some easier than others.   But at the very least a site should meet some minimum standards, website search engines don't like faulty websites, and flaws will have a negative effect on the websites ranking.   Running a faulty website is a bit like driving a car with flat tyres, you'll get terrible performance no matter how good the car is.  
When somebody looks for something using a search engine like Google, for the search engine to be useful, it needs to find the best results on the searched topic.

Design for people first

The next thing is what words people are typing into a search to find a website, if these words are not present then your website will not be found.  In the video on the right, Matt Cutts from Google explains that a site which is useful for people will be considered more useful by search engines such as Google, and get a better search result.

This is where reports on what people are searching for when they find your website is important.   In the early days of commercial websites 'hit counters' were put on websites to try and gauge traffic.  Unfortunately this is next to useless, as the number could mean a variety of things.   What you really want to know is what's being typed into search engines to find your site, how long they are on your site for, what pages are popular, how many unique people visit your site and so on.   By knowing this you can determine what subjects and sections are popular, what things are not being found and what may require other promotion.

Something else useful you might want to read up about is Google Adwords, Hal Varian (Googles Chief Economist) covers a bit of this in a video presentation check it out here

Matt Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues.  Cutts advises the public on how to get better website visibility in Google. From Wikipedia