If you build it, they will come (maybe)
Webmasters go to great lengths to set up beautiful and persuasive shop-fronts, then sit back and wait for the traffic to roll in.

Search engines now index in excess of 3 billion web pages, so it's no surprise that the 'if you build it, they will come' mentality is not paying off for the vast majority of site owners - there's a lot of competition out there.

Google: traffic mothership
With the recent launch of google.com.au, Google is more than ever the most useful search engine for the Australian internet user.

It's also the most important search engine for the Australian website owner. Ilisys customers derive more than 80% of their search traffic from Google.

How do I get my page to the top of Google?
There's no magic-bullet that will get your pages to the top of Google for your desired search terms.

Other search engines do allow you to pay your way to the top but part of Google's charm - and a lot of its usefulness - stems from its method of calculating the relevance of any given page for any given search term.

There are two important dimensions that Google use to determine which pages should appear in their search results, and in which order:

Page importance
Google's Page Rank rating attributes an importance value to each page in their index. Each page that links to your page increases your importance. If lots of pages link to the pages that link to your page, your importance will be increased even more - it's a bit like a pyramid scheme and it's pretty good at what it does.

There's a finite amount of importance to share around and each month Google refreshes its calculations, so it's worth keeping a monthly eye on your pages.

Page relevance
To determine how relevant a page is for a given search query, Google looks at the composition of the page, how the different words appear and where.

Cleanly laid out, well organized pages with meaningful content almost always end up near the top.

Another important factor in determining relevance is external link text - the actual text that pages use to link to your pages. If lots of people link to your page with the text queensland motel information, then Google will deem your page relevant when people search for queensland motel information, or even queensland motel.

How do I increase my page's importance?
Try and find similarly themed websites and ask for a reciprocal link. Also, be sure to take advantage of the free listings in Yahoo! and DMOZ. The very best links come from sites that are authorities in your field - an industry association perhaps.

How do I increase my page's relevance?
Work slowly but surely. Overdoing your 'optimisation' can be more harmful to your rankings than doing nothing at all.

A good first rule of thumb is to make sure your pages meet the W3C's Accessibility Checklist.

Second, build a site map. Site maps do more than just give people (and search engine spiders) a way to find your content - they also are a great way to tell Google what kind of content it should expect to find (and find relevant) on each of your pages.

What next?
Webmasterworld maintains an excellent guide to ranking well with Google here. The forums at SitePoint may also contain useful advice from other webmasters.