When a small business owner builds a web site with the hope it will be noticed by potential customers.   To attract attention many firms invest in Pay Per Click or paid SEO strategists to drive traffic.  Before you make those investments, there are a number of things you can do to optimize your website on your own.

Lisa Martinez has written a great post on PromtionWold.com outlining ten simple rules to follow to improve your SEO.

My favorite:Avoid Keyword Overstuffing.  Lisa says:

2. Keyword Overstuffing. When you are finished with your website’s content, read it aloud at least twice to measure how it sounds. When you repeat the same keyword phrase twice in the same sentence or three times in a single paragraph, you have gone overboard. Select the best keywords to use in your content and stick to them. If there are too much to talk about, break them down in sections or use them in other pages of your site.

Why is this so critical?  Not only will you get penalized by search engines if you overstuff,  you will annoy the real people who come to your site as well.  Overstuffing makes content clunky, annoying and unreadable.   Remember, it is not just how much traffic you drive to your site, but how well you engage the visitor when they arrive!