PurposeThe miniscule wireless sensor nodes, engaged in the wide range of applications for its capability of monitoring the physical changes around, requires an improved routing strategy with the befitting sensor node arrangement that plays a vital part in ensuring a completeness of the network coverage.Design/methodology/approachThis paves way for the reduced energy consumption, the enhanced network connections and network longevity. The conventional methods and the evolutionary algorithms developed for arranging of the node ended with the less effectiveness and early convergence with the local optimum respectively.FindingsThe paper puts forward the befitting arrangement of the sensor nodes, cluster-head selection and the delayless routing using the ant lion (A-L) optimizer to achieve the substantial coverage, connection, the network-longevity and minimized energy consumption.Originality/valueThe further performance analysis of the proposed system is carried out with the simulation using the network simulator-2 and compared with the genetic algorithm and the particle swarm optimization algorithm to substantiate the competence of the proposed routing method using the ant lion optimization.