The key is content, content, content! This is the most important. You need good content and lots of it. Research the keywords relevant to your topic/business, your customers and you unique selling point. Then optimize your texts using these keywords. This is to make sure the right people find you. To a certain degree you can dedicate diffenent pages to specific keywords. Pay also attention to your page titles. For phpwcms that would mean to maybe set up several identical page layouts for the different areas of your site, as this is where the page title is generated. Although phpwcms even adds areticle titles and so on to the page title, you can improve by making the beginning of the titles relevant to a specific section on your site. People mostly read the first few words of a title.
All this makes shure that your site comes up for the right searches.
Get your keywords into the URLs. You should name your pages properly and you could use subdomains using your keywords. Of course if your main URL could contain the keyword as well.
Ensure all content is accessible by spiders. (eg. don't hide text in Graphics.)
Google puts a lot of emphasis on page ranking. So get as many highranking sites to link to yours as possible. See who links to your competitors and get these sites to also incude your link. (You can find this out somehow via google I think)
Don't use frames, don't use javascript links. Add keyword rich alt, title and anchor tags where appropriate. Add your link to your forum enties.
A good site to learn from is for example statcounter.com. They are number one with Google for "website statistic" and they have a page ranking of 8-9 for their pages. (I'm not sure whether the code inserted into the sites of their users has something to do with it, but for a small site that is not the BBC or similar it's quite impressive.) And here you've got it: lots of keyword rich relevant content on each page. Search engines just love sites like this. Looks really boring but does the job very well.
Get your site into as many free directories as possible:
DMOZ -
http://dmoz.org/ (important)
YAHOO -
http://dir.yahoo.com/
GoGuides.org -
http://www.goguides.org/
JoeAnt –
http://www.joeant.com
Zeal (non-commercial) -
http://www.zeal.com/
Gimpsy –
http://www.gimpsy.org
HotRate (must be an editor) –
http://www.hotrate.com
Xoron -
http://www.xoron.com/
Lycos Directory -
http://www.lycos.co.uk/dir/
business.com -
http://www.business.com/
http://www.joeant.com/
http://www.goguides.org/
Canada
Proudly Canadian -
http://www.porthardybc.ca/
LocalSites.ca -
http://www.localsites.ca/
CanadaOne.com -
http://www.canadaone.com/
StartPage.ca -
http://www.startpage.ca/
UK
Limey Search -
http://www.limeysearch.co.uk/
dotukdirectory.co.uk -
http://www.dotukdirectory.co.uk/
Splut.com -
http://www.splut.com/
GBP
http://www.great-british-pages.co.uk/
sgtsearch
http://www.sgtsearch.co.uk
Australia
Ausie.com -
http://www.aussie.com.au/
AAA Smart Search -
http://www.aaa.com.au/
The Australian Internet Directory -
http://www.directory.com.au/
Germany
FISH-NET.DE
http://www.fischnet-pathfinder.de/
GNADENMEER
http://www.gnadenmeer.de
123 WORLD
http://www.de.123world.com/
ABACHO
http://www.abacho.com/
ACOON
http://www.acoon.de/
ALLESKLAR
http://www.allesklar.de/
ALL OF GERMANY
http://www.allofgermany.com/
ALTAVISTA
http://de.altavista.com/
AMIDALLA
http://www.amidalla.com/
AXXASEARCH
http://www.axxasearch.com/
BODENSEE INFORMATION
http://www.bodensee-information.de/index.html
CHROOGLE
http://chroogle.de/
CHRISNET
http://www.chrisnet.de
CROSSBOT
http://www.crossbot.de/
DAS SAARLAND
http://www.dassaarland.de/
DINO ONLINE
http://www.dino-online.de/
EIC SEARCH
http://www.eichsfeld-net.de/
EVANGELIUMSNETZ
http://www.evangelium.de/
FEUERFLAMME
http://www.feuerflamme.de/
HAMBURG WEB
http://www.hamburg-web.de/
HANNOVER WEB
http://www.hannover-web.com/
HIT NET
http://www.hit-net.de/
JESUS.DE
http://www.jesus.de
JESUS-FINDEN.DE
http://www.jesus-finden.de/
LEVIATAN
http://www.leviatan.net/
INFO TIGER
http://www.infotiger.com/
KIRCHE & INTERNET
http://www.kirche-internet.de
MAVICA NET
http://www.mavicanet.com/directory/deu/
MIRAGO
http://www.mirago.de/
MITTELFRANKEN
http://mittelfranken-online.de/suche/welcome.htm
NATHAN
http://www.nathan.de/
RUHR INFO
http://www.ruhrinfo.de/
SEEK.DE
http://www.seek.de/
SUCHBOT
http://www.suchbot.de/
SUCHMASCHINE
http://www.suchmaschine.com/
TOP 1000
http://www.top1000.de/topindex/
TRAMPELPFAD
http://www.trampelpfad.de/
WALHELLO
http://www.walhello.com/mainde.html
WEBBES.DE
http://www.webbes.de/index.html
WEB.DE
http://www.web.de/
WESTERWALDER
http://www.westerwald-links.com/
YAHOO
http://de.yahoo.com/
