don't forget about the search feature. You can have 2 search boxes as well on the site. I have not been in the business long but over the last 7 months I have learned allot. The best thing I recommend is just read as much as you can. As you are just starting off I have these recommendations.
1. Research topics you know about and use rellevent keywords for that topic. I would not try to optimize your landing page for more then 6 words. Once you have a main site topic then you can narrow down keywords by using tools like Overture's keyword search. I like to use a free program called "good Keywords". Once you have a few sites down the road I would recommened a trial at keyword country. here is the link
www.keywordcountry.com this site also has a video I would recommend you watch as it will give you a good idea about optimizing your site.
2. In order to bring in SE traffic you need to rank for the keywords you optimized for. The best way to do this is have good content and lots of relevent links. Try joining a few free link directories. I would not link with other sites that are not related and I would also not recommend link farms. The idea here is to increase your PR (page Rank) The traffic will come in time.
3. Link placement is also important. I went through a lot of different layouts before I found one that worked for me. view
www.brainboxcomputers.com/tips.html for an example. I optimized this site for adsense not to long ago and it does not rake in the cash but I manage to make up to a few bucks a day from it. Another site I just built up is
www.carpetcleaningheadquarters.com The only reason I mention this is look at the ad-link on the page. It fits really nice in that head bar and I made it blend in naturally to the site. Having ads that do not look like ads is really what you are after. I also change all google ad-sense code so the title is black and the url blue because this is more natural. You will find that for some sites it is better that the ads stick out more so play around with it.
Ok it's 2:00 am my time so thats all I'm going to write for now.
