Search engine optimization of file and folder names
Do a Google search for "seo tips", and notice that many of the URL's listed in the results have those exact keywords inside of the URL (either in the folder name or in the filename). Google even bolds the keywords in the URL to emphasize the relevance of the page.
Knowing this, you should name the folders and pages of your site with search engine optimization in mind. You might have one folder to represent each major keyword phrase, and then name the pages within each folder to target niche searches.
If you've already developed your site and are going to rename folders/pages now, be sure to create a redirect script on the old pages so that search engines can easily find your new content and preserve any existing ranking.
Consider an alternate domain name for SEO purposes
Do a search for "conquer fear" on Google and notice that www.conquerfear.com comes up near the top, even though the keywords aren't in the title. Do a search for "what is my ip address", and notice that the top two domains are "whatismyip.com" and "whatismyipaddress.com". This demonstrates the value of a keyword-laden domain name as a worthwhile SEO investment.
The value of alternate domain names to search engine optimization will be even more apparent on less sophisticated search engines. Do a search for "conquer fear" on MSN.com (now Bing.com) and notice that www.conquer-fear.com comes up near the top, even though that company's real domain is "www.rx-success.com".
*Important note for organic (free) search engine optimization: If you've already been promoting one domain, then you should probably continue concentrating your SEO efforts on just that domain. Google does not like to index duplicate content, and usually does a good job of determining your primary domain from inward links (explained on the next page). But if you really want to switch domains, then follow these guidelines for notifying Google of the change.
Sitemaps for search engine optimization
If your site is a small one, then having a simple navigation bar on the homepage, and well worded page titles/descriptions on all webpages, will probably be sufficient for search engines to index the pages of your site. However, if your site is a large one, then you should also have a dedicated sitemap, with links to it from every page on your website. This way, any search engine crawler will be able to find all pages within a couple hops.
Regardless of whether your site is small or large, the current consensus (among other experts) is that you should always have a sitemap registered with Google Webmaster Tools. Among other things, the Google sitemap tool allows you to communicate to Google what weight (importance) you would assign to each of your sites' pages.
Personally, I don't use Google sitemaps because my websites are rather small, and Google has seemed to ignore my weighting suggestions in the past. Furthermore, I feel that the day will come when Google realizes that webmasters who are overly Google-SEO-focused might not be providing the best websites. But that's just me (paranoid SEO guy).
