What is Website Optimization.
A website is created to showcase your product / ideas to as
large a number of visitors as possible; in other words it is
a marketing strategy and most of the time you want to earn
some decent amount of money too. The higher a website ranks
in the Search Engine Search Results, higher would be the
traffic to your website. This is similar to just like a
shop aims at a large number of visitors to sell more and
increase profit. This is a goal all website owners aim at.

Time Factor to reach Top in the Search Engine Results.
Website optimization is an arduous task and normally will
take 3-7 months to reach top 10 in Google Serps and other
major Search Engines. Varying time period depends upon how
competitive are the search phrases for which you desire
your site to be in the top 10 in Google and other major
Search Engines.

What does SEO involve
Following factors involved in Search Engine Optimization
(a) Internal Optimization, also referred to as Onpage
optimization. This concerns the content of a web page,
keyword in the title tag, meta tags, ALT tags, H1-H3 tags,
bold tag, Keyword Density in the body tag, First Sentence
in the body, Internal Links etc. Once done the website
should be submitted/listed/indexed in the search engines.
If it is listed in some search engines, it is not required
to be submitted to all the search engines as they will pick
it up from the search engines where it is listed. One
should avoid 100% keyword spamming and other black hat
techniques.

(b) External Optimization, known as Offpage Optimization
This concerns your Link Popularity, that is the incoming
link (some persons refer to them as backlinks). The anchor
text of the links pointing to your site, Link Popularity
within the Site's Internal Link Structure, and Server
accessibility to Bots is important.

To see more details about the above 2 important points,
visit http://searchengineland.com/070403-145435.php

Also important among many other factors are Keyword in the
domain name, Sitemap and Site age.

SEO Maintenance
Once a website has reached in the top Search Engine Results,
it is not likely to stay there if you stop your optimization
exercise. This is because your competitors will continuously
try to outdo sites above them and may actually take your
position in the SERPs. So it has to be born in mind that
optimization is a continuous process, even after achieving
your desired goal, though less intensive effort is required
thence.