Getting traffic to your web site is key, no matter what the purpose of your site is. There are a few ways to drive traffic. It's all about the place where your web site and the search engines meet.

Having a robust number of keywords listed in the header of each of your pages is just the beginning. The text on your pages must also contain those words. The labels for your images, the alternate text and the titles for your pages are more places for those key words to show up.

Besides the more direct methods of driving traffic to your site is the content you choose. Having tangential content is a great way to pull people to your site that reaches beyond keywords.

As the Creative Director of Cookn.com, a web site which sold recipes from Cooking Light magazine, I was always looking for content related to cooking. Because of our connection to Cooking Light, healthy cooking in particular was important. In doing research I found several food pyramids, all unattractive as far as I was concerned. I then drew my own in Illustrator, complete with roll overs. It turned out to be one of the biggest draws to our site.

Having a web site that looks pretty can be one of the most useless bits of data out there. If a user cannot get the information he/she is looking for you've missed the point.

Yes, a site needs to be attractive, but it needs to work. There are two main part to usability, being able to get to the information easily but also optimizing the site so the download speed does not try the user's patience. It's possible to meet both these needs, but it is a balance.