There are two types of search engine marketing; the first, known as Pay-Per-Click, requires you to pay for each individual visitor that comes to your site. The generally better route to take is through search engine optimization, or SEO. With this technique, you gain natural rankings in search engines, and all the traffic you get is completely free.
In the field of SEO, one has to split their activities between working directly on their site and building links to it. The former is known as on-site SEO, while the latter is off-site SEO. Both are equally critical to having your site rank well in search engines.
It is imperative to start out focusing on your website and not on off-page factors. Step one is to determine what keywords you want to target, as if you do not choose the right keyphrases, all your effort will be for nothing. Make sure to have a good keyword density on your site, which is usually between three and six percent.
One of the biggest mistakes webmasters make is targeting the wrong keywords. You need to find a keyword or keyphrase that is not very competitive but has a fair amount of search volume. Determining what keyphrases you want to target is the ultimate goal of keyword research, which is a whole topic in itself.
While on-page SEO is initially important and should be continued, the majority of effort should be devoted to link building. This can be achieved through various means, but the ultimate goal is to get as many links, with as much power, as possible. Incoming links is the only factor in Google’s PageRank calculations.
The methods for creating links are numerous and creative. Some techniques include article distribution, blog commenting, and link baiting. The latter requires no work other than having good content on your site, which people would naturally want to link to.
Many people feel they do not have the time or expertise to effectively rank a website themselves, or the keywords they are attempting to rank for are very difficult. If all else fails, there are hundreds of SEO firms online that will do the work for you, as well as consult you on how to best continue work yourself.
Since the benefits of SEO pay off for essentially the entire lifetime of a website, it is the most valuable promotion technique. Once you have ranked well for a keyphrase, it is hard to lose that ranking, even if you completely stop posting new content.