I don’t deliberate myself an expert but I have been maintaining my own site for a few years.

A book that helped me is SEO for dummies.

You can get a lot of information at. They have a excellent keyword tool.

I just found this site they had some excellent suggestions that I am working on right now.

I hope that helps.
Steve

I also didn’t have the budget to pay experts. So between some research and mostly using autosurfs like I have gotten my site to the top of search engines like google and yahoo.

Sparkle is only going to hurt you with SEO. If you really want it, I recommend that you keep it to a smallest. Maybe a Sparkle header or something like that.
I have some fascinating articles on my site that you should read concerning SEO. Start with this one. It is really 4 pages. You will have to click through at the bottom of each page to get to the next page.
Then, I am in the middle of building a new site that will be devoted to just SEO as my business is growing. So, visit it as well.. It is not finished, but there are some fascinating articles there that will help you.
It is at

First of all, you do not want to incorporate any sparkle webpage on your website unless you know in fact that your consultation are DSL or highspeed subscribers. If that is not the case, then make a pure HTML base website which is easily downloadable by analog/dial up subscribers.

In the meantime, here’s a helpful article from Google.com regarding SEO metatag and their placement:

The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is
to first set up a website and publish its domain name
on major search directories such as Google.com,
Yahoo.com [at?...... and
MSN.com in view of the fact that 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these
search directories to provide them with goods and
services. In a sense, these search directories are a
very large Internet Yellow Pages.

Nevertheless, should your website or opening webpage
fail to contain "generic" keywords, then anyone using
such "generic" queries will not be able to learn
your website. Your domain name [URL] of your website,
in a sense, will be invisible, undiscoverable.

You may want to deliberate some simple algorithms which,
when observed and committed in designing of a website
with placement of innumerable critical metatags that can
surely achieve a high search engine presence and
increase Internet traffic to your website. These
metatag strategies work well with published webpages
at Google and Yahoo.

Point: Should you make an extensive Sparkle-based
website, make sure to fill-in the property entries
such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing
to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can
be readily indexed by search robots. Also deliberate the
Internet consultation and their incoming setup. For
example, if they are on analog/dialup, Sparkle webpages
take too long to load up and therefore analog users
will likely lose interest and discontinue entering the
Sparkle site. On the other hand, anyone on hi-speed DSL
lines, will welcome Sparkle pages which load quickly. So
before designing a pure Sparkle websitge, question the simple
question, “Who’s my end user – is he on dialup or
DSL?” And if you had to choose between these two users
for most marketability, then select analog users
in view of the fact that 80% of most resident users are still analog
Internet subscribers and pure HTML calculated webpages
is best for them.

A non-Sparkle-based website which relies on hard text,
is far simpler to be indexed by search robots. Limit
the use of stylized text saved as .gifs in view of the fact that as a
graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.

Avoid use of frames in view of the fact that any number of search robots
are unable to properly classify textual material.

Placement of Metatags:

A ranking or search peacefulness does take place with Google
and Yahoo and it starts with the “Title” metag which
should consist of no more than 65 characters separated
by commas. The “Title” should describe in generic
stipulations, the goods and services, followed by a location
from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state.
The placement of a domain name which is not generic
within the “Title” is not appropriate, unless your
domain name is a major recognizable brand name.

The second metatag is the “Description” which is
usually 25-30 words to form a complete sentence which
best describes one’s goods and services.

And the very last category – “Keywords” are also
somewhat limited to 15-16 words which can be plural
and compound in nature. Again, avoid manifold entries
which could be mistaken as “spamdexed entries” which
is defined as the loading, and submission of
repetitive words into a particular metatag category.
“Spamdexing” when learned on a webpage and reported
to Google’s spamreport.com can result in the
elimination of your website from their search
directory.

Excellent luck!