Websites rank well because they provide good content.   That's first and foremost so when you're designing your website, consider what your audience might consider good content and what they may want to read or find there on a regular basis.

Make your content substantial.  You want to provide a good amount of written content and as a guideline a good amount of content per topic per page would mean aiming for an article or page approximately 500 words or more.

Make your content informative, educational or entertaining.  Not only will you engage your audience but this type of content lends itself well to conversations, explanations and value to the reader.  It adds credibility to your business and can initiate inquiries you may not have originally anticipated.  And, when people decide to subscribe to your eNewsletter or your RSS Feed, the value of your content will be the key to persuading someone to follow along.

Include keywords in your content.  The main area of your website where keywords should be found is within the article or main body of text.  Do some keyword research to find the most popular phrases for your topic.  This is the starting point for search engine optimization and getting top rankings for your web page and keyword phrases. 

There are a couple of wonderful keyword research tools out there.  One is called WordTracker.  The other is Google Adwords.  You can start with some simple words you've thought up.  Insert them into WordTracker or Google Adwords and it will come up with phrases that include the word you were thinking of using.  Some phrases may be applicable while others, not so much. 

People search by keyword phrases, not just one keyword.  You want to select keyword phrases that make sense and work well together.  Using the tool, it will provide you with the most common keyword phrases and tell you how popular or how often they are used by people.  They'll even show you how competitively these phrases are sought after so you'll know how much it might effort it may take to rank well for these keyword phrases.  The more competition there is for a keyword phrase, the more difficult it is to be recognized for that phrase.  In WordTracker, they provide a Keyword Effectiveness Index that shows you which phrases would be the most fruitful to use and rank.

Optimize the use of your phrases.  That's why it's called search engine optimization.  Overusing a good phrase doesn't help you and can even hurt your rankings.  A good use of phrases means that it will be found about 3% of the time within your content.  And, using them in key spots on your page is critical.  These areas include the title of your page and in your heading tags especially the Heading 1 tag.

Next, a page without traffic may not rank that well.  Take the time to tell the world you have this content.  There are a number of ways you can do this.  Submit your page to the search engines manually.  Google, Yahoo! and MSN all have a way for you to Add a URL which is your webpage address.  Also, if you use a Web 2.0 or social media web platform like PublishCommunity, you can create blogs and add social media bookmarks for your content. 

Create traffic by using a regular email Newsletter.  The main reason for an email Newsletter is to highlight valuable information and content so that people can go directly to the desired information.  Provide a short summary in your email Newsletter followed by a read more link to the full article on your website.  If it's information people want to consume, they'll follow the link and read the article.  You'll get a very real sense of how important topics are to your target audience once you start sending an email Newsletter and monitoring the click thrus to your website.  Then, you'll know where to focus your communication efforts.  Email marketing or broadcasting statistics tell you what is important to people.

Have an Action Plan.  Once you start to get a sense of what is important, provide people with an action plan.  Provide a way for people to take action and make it a reality to have their needs met.  The action plan can be as simple as using the contact us form for a representative to call or to ask a question. 

Comments are a great way to develop a dialogue and answer questions that are on everyone's minds.  Of course, on a Web 2.0 platform such as PublishCommunity, the idea is to encourage the conversation.  This will answer common questions that may not have been made clear in the information provided.  Or, it may start a dialogue into interesting and related topics which are on everyone's minds.  Opinions get expressed by other like-minded individuals.  This tells us that we have truly created a conversation that matters to people.

So, make it a habit and soon you'll have a conversation and your own community.