Many people mistakenly think of SEO as an afterthought, like the garnishing on a cake or the landscaping around a house. This is one of the worst mistakes an e-commerce newcomer can make. SEO is far from being an afterthought; it is part of the site design and creation process itself. Make sure to hire an SEO specialist (or do it yourself if you can) before actually creating your site, because you should take your target audience into consideration for the architecture of your site. For instance, the words used on your site's navigation, categories, and the links structure can really help push your site to the top if you use the proper keywords in them. Furthermore, you should put yourself in the shoes of your visitors: would they find browsing through your site enjoyable or easy? If the design is too complicated, it might create a wall between you and your visitors. Search spiders will also have a hard time crawling through a site with a messy link structure. SO be sure to have an optimized design plan before creating your site.

Another big mistake is the use of 'splash pages'--pages that do nothing but scream the name of your site or your brand, with a link that says "Enter" somewhere around, or a Flash movie that you must sit through before you can actually see the site's contents. It might look cool, and some sites do make use of these--but usually sites that do are extremely well-established and people know how to get to them without the use of search engines. If you're just a budding new business who's yet to leave a mark on people's minds, this is really one of the worst ideas ever. Your home page should act like a table of contents for your site, while also giving a warm welcome to your visitors. (A table-of-contents only page is called a site map.) It should also help you attain higher rankings. This is the main reason why such pages aren't recommended. Splash pages lack keyword-rich text, usually have only one link, and usually have redirects. Keyword-rich text helps your site rank higher for your keywords. A single link tells search engines that that page is the only important page in your site (which it obviously isn't). And redirects are usually ignored by search engines because of the possibility of abuse. Remember to design your homepage so that it creates an impact in both the visitors and the search engines.

Sometimes, a website will either have too much text and too little images, and vice versa. You need to balance between HTML-formatted text and graphic images. On one end, a site that is mostly huge blocks of text and little if any images, while it may do well with search engines, is a sign of an amateur, and people know better than to trust their money with amateurs. On the other end, a site with little text but lots of pictures or Flash animations just won't rank in the search engines. Take for instance a Flash-only site. It might look like it's a full website just made to look better with Flash, but in reality it's one page and one giant Flash movie, which search spiders will ignore. Striking a balance between both will earn you the trust and patronage of both humans and search robots.

Lastly, and most importantly, keep in mind that most of your visitors will be coming from search engines. In other words, they find your site through the queries they enter in the search box. The visitor is looking for something, and you are there to give them what they want. Don't try to make a personally-satisfying piece of art with your website--save that for your personal blog. Instead, focus on what your customers want to see and what is pleasing to them. In no time many of those visitors will be converted into customers, and you should start making cash. Good luck!

Some people might find that, despite having done some SEO on their website, traffic still isn't rushing in like they expected, and it's been quite a while. It's not that your product or website is bad. Maybe you just overlooked some things. Try looking over this short list and see if there's anything in here that you forgot:

1. Did you use text instead of pictures where it matters? Specifically, for keywords. Also, don't let the pictures speak for themselves--the search engines won't ever find you this way. Accompany images with text underneath, and don't forget the alternate text attribute.

2. Did you try to cover all possible keywords? Some people might avoid doing this on their websites thinking it might constitute keyword stuffing. But there are accepted methods to cover all the possible keyphrases for your product. One of these is articles. With several of them, you can feature many, many variants of your keyphrase without having to resort to keyword stuffing. For instance, if you sell used video games, one article might use the "used video games" keyphrase while another can use "second-hand video games" or "pre-owned video games", etc.

3. Did you pick a good URL? The best URL is one that is descriptive of the nature of your business. If your top keyphrase is "used videogames", something like www.used-videogames.com would be the best. Do not register a domain before consulting someone who is knowledgable at keyword strategy.

4. Did you title your pages properly? "Article" or "Home" don't really cut it. Neither search engines nor your audience will find this very enticing. Try a descriptive title; for instance, if the page is an article about used video games, you can call the page "Free article on used video games". The home page, you can call "Used video games store" or something similar.

There are many, many things you can do to gain at least the first few pages, if not the top spot, of search engine rankings, but these are the things that people usually miss. Keep them in mind, and watch your rankings shoot high up.