what else beside meta tags could i do to improve page rank?

Well to start with... Your site has 64 errors according to http://validator.w3.org/

Might help to clean that up :)

Before you write one line of code:

  • Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target

While constructing your website you should do the following:

  • Use markup to indicate the content of your site
    • Optimize your <title> tags on each page to contain 1 - 3 keywords
    • Create unique Meta Tags for each page
    • Use header tags appropriately (H1 > H2 > H3)
    • Use <strong> and <em> tags if appropriate
  • Optimize your URLs
  • Optimize your content
    • Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page
    • Have unique content
    • Have quality content
  • Use search engine friendly design
    • Create a human sitemap
    • Do not use inaccessible site navigation (JavaScript menus)
    • Minimized outbound links
    • Kept your pages under 100K in size
  • Design the navigational structure of the site to channel PR to main pages (especially the homepage)
  • Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site
    • Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you
    • Provide them with any images you may want them to use (although text links are better)
  • Make sure your website is complete before launching it

Immediately after launching your site you should do the following:

  • Submit your site to all major search engines
  • Submit your site to all free directories
  • Submit your site to relevant directories
  • Begin a link building campaign (attempting to get keywords in the link anchor text)
    • Put a link to your website in your forum signatures
    • Reply to relevant blog posts (Don't spam please)
    • Submit articles to relevant websites

If you will pay to promote your website:

  • Submit your site to pay directories
  • Purchase text links from high PR (Pagerank) sites related to your site

Finally, as part of an ongoing strategy:

  • Continually update your website will quality, unique content
  • Continually seek free links preferably from sites in your genre

Do NOT do the following:

  • Make an all Flash website (without an HTML alternative)
  • Use JavaScript for navigation
  • Spam other websites for incomming links
  • Launch your site before it is done
  • Use duplicate content
    • Point several domains to one site without using a 301 redirect
  • Use markup inappropiately
    • Style <H>eader tags to look like regular text
    • Hide content using 'display: hidden' (for the sake of hiding text)
  • Use other "black hat" techniques (unless you accept the risk - Banning)
    • Doorway/Landing pages
    • Cloaking
    • Hidden text
    • Keyword stuffing

Additional Tips:

  • Usable and accessible sites tend to be search engine friendly by their very nature
  • Be patient! High rankings don't happen overnight
  • Don't obsess with any one search engine. They are all worth your attention.

In other words you have SEO in mind before you start your website. And only submit once you have a complete website.

Stymiee!

Great Info!

All new SEO people should know this. Thanks for the info.

BTW, neshoggi, one good advise from me, add more back links, but only from related and good legal websites :)

Thank you for your article.

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stymiee, your article is a must read article about website development and marketing must do. It provides all the essential steps that must be taken to develop a great website. I can add that new websites needs at least 8 months before they start to move in google in their rankings if they follow all the right webmaster tools to promote their websites.

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