I have recently redesigned www.freebetsite.com and its all xhtml valid, no tables etc. I'm trying to achieve good results for searches such as free bets, free bet etc. Most of the sites that rank well don't adhere to web standards so I feel it's achievable. Am I targeting the right keywords etc?
Its helpful for search engines to crawl your website well and eventually index it but it doesn't mean you will get any favor if you are adhering web standards.So you have to work from scratch on your keywords and optimize your pages one by one. YOu can find your niche related keywords by using "~" operator in Google.