The benefits of having your website at the top of search results are obvious. It is also no secret that an effective search engine optimization campaign can take you there. But what are the components of successful SEO efforts?

First and foremost your site requires comprehensive analysis. Your SEO company should clearly understand the needs and goals of your business and tailor the whole process according to them.

As soon as the priorities are set, the first stage should be keyword research. Just like in any other type of advertising you need to find out all ins and outs of your target market. The most important thing is how people look for products and services similar to yours. The chosen set of keywords should be highly relevant to the theme of your website. You should also consider the level of competition for the keywords you’ve identified in order to find out whether it is possible to obtain high rankings for these keywords with the budget you have. It would be an overkill to compete for the most popular keywords, but on the other hand it won’t do your business any good if you win top ratings for phrases that no one will ever search for. Try to find a reasonable middle ground.

Once you’ve come up with the keywords for your website, its time to develop the content in which they will be used. Titling a page according to the keyword and using corresponding meta tags is a poor excuse for an effective search engine optimization. Your page should have informative content related to the phrase you optimize it for. Content development may range from adjusting the page titles and meta tags to creating additional sections with new content and reorganizing the whole structure of the site. The way you do it will depend on the requirements of your site and business.

Another kind of efforts involved in an effective search engine optimization campaign is link building. Once you’ve completed optimizing the content you should concern yourself with acquiring incoming links to your site. It is important that you start doing this as soon as possible and continue as long as it is needed. The best way to gain link popularity is writing compelling articles, posting on forums and blogs. Do not resort to potentially dangerous link farms and free-for-all sites. It may bring about unwanted consequences such as getting black listed from search engines.

Just like any other service SEO will provide you with what you pay for. If something seems too good to be true, it isn’t. Effective search engine optimization is not a trick. It takes a lot of time, effort and, yes, money. Thoroughly chose SEO company, make sure they understand your needs and concerns. If you make the right choice the investment is sure to pay off.

We are starting to run thin on potential link partners. I have sent hundreds of requests (most of them customized) to high values sites and now the pool is running dry. For you guys who have been in my situation, where do you turn to find new link partners?So far, I’ve hit the search engines and went through all the industry link sections of my competitors and related sites/industries.

Oops Links Links and Links……

We need to be #1, how can we get links? Almost every other client has this question.

My answer:

1. Content: If you don’t have content on your website, you don’t deserve links. So work on the content, make it worthy of a read.
2. Services: Do you really exist? What do you do? Do you offer something unique? If you are doing something useful probably there are a bunch who want to talk about your site.
3. Don’t live in an era of Link exchange. Those days are almost over, rely on creating talkable content. There are tons of articles on it.
4. Focus on few links, get the relationship moving. If a public speaker is impressed with your website, he will spread to many who will link back. So make sure you take your site to people who are talkers for your subject.
5. Press releases are tricky, don’t publish one article across many sites, max 5 and if possible, let all of these articles contain a link to one article so that you can cash in more juice.
6. News websites: There are tons of services that offer paid exposure and getting you to news sites.
7. Gadgets: Make gadgets and get links from there. It will also prompt many people to talk about your services.
8. Target technical neighborhood, they like to talk about things, so keep doing something that they can talk about.

There is a ton that one can write about links. I wish I had enough time. You can get some good links for $s too (most of them do it but very smartly).

But remember this formula
Year 2003: - Page based optimization, get links to targeted pages only.
Year 2008: Site based optimization, get links to site, make your site credible, pages of a credible websites are credible, get some topical links to the pages and you rock the SERPS.

Easy said than done :). Do your dirty work yourself or pay the experts.