Your site should have plenty of text because search engines will look for keywords.

Here's a list of things to consider and ways to improve rank:

1. page rank - The number of other pages that link to you.  Contact other webmasters and share links.  You have to take an aggressive and targeted approach.

2. keyword in title and a descriptive non-contextual title (Don't use "Home").

3. keyword in H1

4. keyword in URL

5. keyword density (total word count being considered)

6. keyword in links to page (anchor text)

7. keyword in bold / strong, etc.

8. keyword in other parts (full text, alt, title, meta description)

9. keyword proximity (if search for 2+ keywords)

10. keyword order (does or not order in page match order in query)

11. keyword prominence (how early in page/tag)

12. URL length

13. relevant image alt text.

14. The description META tag can be used as a site description in search results.

15. Frames seem to be a bad idea.  Using the NOFRAMES tag helps.

16. Do not use cloaking.  That is when you have a page with tons of keywords and then redirect to another page.

17. Make a robots.txt file.  You can specify which engines can access which pages.

18. Use the Lynx browser to see your web site as a text based client would.  This is how a spider or robot will "see" your web site too.

Each single page should answer these questions very quickly to a surfer.

1. Who is this page intended for?

2. What can I do here?

3. When was this page last updated?

4. Where am I?  Shared Borders and good navigation can help here.

5. Why do I care?

"The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors."

It is pretty easy to add a site.  You have to find a good category which is the hardest part.

I listed www.sparkyscastle.com under this directory Computers: Internet: On the Web: Best of the Web: Selective Link Lists.

I listed www.sparkyland.com under Top: Games: Internet: Browser Based: Collections.

Adding a site to Yahoo! is very similar to dmoz.  Make sure your site is not in Yahoo! already.  Go to the directory where you think your site should be and click suggest a site.

I listed www.sparkyland.com under this directory Recreation/Games/Computer Games/Internet Games/Web Games.

I listed www.sparkyscastle.com under Society and Culture/People/Personal Home Pages/Web Directories.

Google is the site you really want to get listed in, but it can be hard.  It is best if other sites link to your pages, so Google can find them.  Also try to get your page in Yahoo! and dmoz and it will help with getting it into Google.

You can request to add a URL at http://www.google.com/addurl.html, but there is no guarantee that it will be added.

More information is available at http://www.google.com/webmasters/.  This page is super helpful to understand how Google works.

Go to Sparky's Castle to see a list of search engines.  Go there and submit!