The goal of Search Engine Optimization is to rank higher in the search engines for keywords, motivate people to click on that listing, and then convert them on your website. It is a long term strategy, but once achieved is worth its price in gold.

1. Know your keywords (actually, know the keywords your ideal customer uses when searching on the website for products/services that you provide)
2. Create copy that works using these keywords
3. Develop a link building strategy
4. Create landing pages
5. Write a strong meta description
6. Know what you want people to do on that page and make it easy for them to do it
7. Make sure your website is crawler friendly

LINK BUILDING

Strong link building is a must for search engine strength. If you have lots of strong links pointing towards your webpages, from strong websites, the search engines will rank you as important, and increase your rating. A strong link is a link directly from a keyword (versus a link from words such as "click here").

Start at home

Search engines see webpages, not websites, so link your website page to page with keyword links.

Directories

Strong link building is a must for search engine strength. If you have lots of strong links pointing towards your webpages, from strong websites, the search engines will rank you as important, and increase your rating. A strong link is a link directly from a keyword (versus a link from words such as "click here").Search engines see webpages, not websites, so link your website page to page with keyword links.

Here are some directories where you can get free listings:

• www.businessseek.biz
• www.somuch.com
• www.skoobe.biz
• www.geniusfind.com www.epooch.com
• www.clickey.com
• Health Directory of North America - free online catalog of relevant and useful web sites. Free submit a site to North America web directory and link exchange.

Other Opportunites

Look everywhere! Any where that your site is mentioned, ask for a link. Think of other good places for links. See who is linking to your competition.

LANDING PAGE

This is the first page people arrive on when they come to your website.

It is important to have different landing pages for different keywords rather than always directing people to your home page.

Reasons for this include: 

1. Most people like to find what they need quickly and are easily discouraged if they have to click several times.
2. A strong landing page, that is keyword rich, attracts the right customers
3. A good landing page is viewed favorably by the search engines, which will help you rank higher.

Example

In a PPC campaign, if your keywords are "purple gorillas", your ad header should be "purple gorillas" and your landing page should be titled "purple gorillas." Just by doing these few things, you can rank much higher than your competitors while paying less.

However, driving traffic to your website is only the start of the battle. All your efforts are wasted if they do not convert while there. Landing pages should make it easy for users to convert in whatever way is important to you. This might be purchasing a product, providing their contact information, or registering for a newsletter.

A strong landing page will bring in more customers, at a lower cost, and provide great conversions.