“If you build it, they will come”
If what Theodore Roosevelt knew more than a hundred years ago held true with websites today, we wouldn’t have to think much about online marketing let alone search engine optimization. Instead search engines should be at the forefront of every online business as top priority in establishing increased brand recognition and visibility across the web.
First, establish what is the target audience and the industry key terms and buzz words are. Secondly, build the website with these terms intermixed but not overly repeated and be sure to include them in headline tags (h1/h2) along with the meta title tag. Clean URLs (website.com/tools/widget) used along with these terms are also a great way to find increased relevance on the search engines.
Websites being built today are vastly different then they were built even just 5 years ago. Bloated HTML syntax (yes tables) is a thing of the past, search engines change algorithms almost daily and web developers are faced with adhering to web standards for the best cross browser viewing experiences.
HTML tags such as links (a href) or image tags (img) can use "alt" and "title" to give a clear description to what links are being referenced, these are great placeholders of rich keywords and content that weight heavily on search engines as well.
In summary, building websites with SEO in mind is a sure fire way to be positioned for success in today’s competitive marketplace. If you don’t you know your competition will.