My site has not applied this until just weeks ago so don't expect my PR to be high. I wish I would've known this earlier. This following is only my opinion on how to make a site promote well:
Content is the most important part of a web page. As Google tells you, build your site for people. If you have something valuable and useful, people will return time and time again. You can get a couple hits a day via search engine and use those vistors as middle men to spread the word like wild fire (if your content is good).
Do not make a Flash website. Some Flash components might enlighten it but Google can't read it (or at least well) so limit it wisely.
Do not spamdex. This means not to use a gigantic lists of keywords right on your content pages and clutter them up just to manipulate the search engine.
Meta tags do not make it or break it. They can help but other than the description, they mean little as far as SEO is concerned.
Do not use automated search index submission. They are not respected by the major search engines. Do it manually, not with a program. Google tells you this too.
Be semantic. Use h1, h2, h3, etc. for headings. Use p for paragraph. Use ul, li, and ol for lists. Use the right tool for the right job. Heading tags mean a lot.
Use the label element for your forms.
If you can possibly get a .edu or .gov backlink, grab it with your life.
Get listed in dmoz.org
Do not sumbit your URL more than once anywhere unless you honestly suspect it might not have been sent your first attempt.
Validate your pages. Invalid pages can appear in violation of British discrimination laws.
If you are not an artist or animator, do not use a splash (intro) page. It does one thing only. It barricades your content and makes it harder to get to. If I'm on your site to read a pollution article, I don't care about your visual gimmick other than it wasted my time and the wait annoyed me.
Never use the same title on 2 or more pages. Give each page on your site a unique title. It looks like you didn't put time into your site (in addition to potentially looking like spam). The title info is extremely important. Speaking of title, adding a title attribute to your anchor elements can't hurt. I don't think the pop-up on mouseover looks too swift for main navigation buttons but for some things they can only help.
Get a real domain. You don't need this and your site can promote without but it's far more likely to be taken seriously (to people, not just search engines). Pick a good domain that you're going to keep and have at least 1 year left on it. Google like that. The logic is that it has more faith a URL will be there when someone finds it.
Don't get a too good to be true host that offers 1,000 GB tranfer per month of something ridiculous like that. If you do get a whole lot of traffic, your visitors will run into problems.
Submit sitemaps to the major search engines. They want you too.
Make sure you don't have any broken links. Triple check.
I really don't know if Google pays attention to WCAG compliance but it can only help.
Try to get some backlinks from pages that have a PR above 0. Generally if people have a good rank, they will not link just anybody. This is proof that making a quality site for humans will help search engine rank.
This is getting long. I should've added links as I went through this too. I'll append later.
Content is the most important part of a web page. As Google tells you, build your site for people. If you have something valuable and useful, people will return time and time again. You can get a couple hits a day via search engine and use those vistors as middle men to spread the word like wild fire (if your content is good).
Do not make a Flash website. Some Flash components might enlighten it but Google can't read it (or at least well) so limit it wisely.
Do not spamdex. This means not to use a gigantic lists of keywords right on your content pages and clutter them up just to manipulate the search engine.
Meta tags do not make it or break it. They can help but other than the description, they mean little as far as SEO is concerned.
Do not use automated search index submission. They are not respected by the major search engines. Do it manually, not with a program. Google tells you this too.
Be semantic. Use h1, h2, h3, etc. for headings. Use p for paragraph. Use ul, li, and ol for lists. Use the right tool for the right job. Heading tags mean a lot.
Use the label element for your forms.
If you can possibly get a .edu or .gov backlink, grab it with your life.
Get listed in dmoz.org
Do not sumbit your URL more than once anywhere unless you honestly suspect it might not have been sent your first attempt.
Validate your pages. Invalid pages can appear in violation of British discrimination laws.
If you are not an artist or animator, do not use a splash (intro) page. It does one thing only. It barricades your content and makes it harder to get to. If I'm on your site to read a pollution article, I don't care about your visual gimmick other than it wasted my time and the wait annoyed me.
Never use the same title on 2 or more pages. Give each page on your site a unique title. It looks like you didn't put time into your site (in addition to potentially looking like spam). The title info is extremely important. Speaking of title, adding a title attribute to your anchor elements can't hurt. I don't think the pop-up on mouseover looks too swift for main navigation buttons but for some things they can only help.
Get a real domain. You don't need this and your site can promote without but it's far more likely to be taken seriously (to people, not just search engines). Pick a good domain that you're going to keep and have at least 1 year left on it. Google like that. The logic is that it has more faith a URL will be there when someone finds it.
Don't get a too good to be true host that offers 1,000 GB tranfer per month of something ridiculous like that. If you do get a whole lot of traffic, your visitors will run into problems.
Submit sitemaps to the major search engines. They want you too.
Make sure you don't have any broken links. Triple check.
I really don't know if Google pays attention to WCAG compliance but it can only help.
Try to get some backlinks from pages that have a PR above 0. Generally if people have a good rank, they will not link just anybody. This is proof that making a quality site for humans will help search engine rank.
This is getting long. I should've added links as I went through this too. I'll append later.