Some people call SEO and Internet marketing an art, but it is more of a science. There’s a precise way to go about building traffic and buzz for a website, and it works. All that needs be done is to understand and find out how it works, and what things to do or not to do.

SEO Basics: Keeping visitors happy and adding more visitors is what SEO is all about. For this purpose, it’s a lot better to be an expert on whatever the website is all about, rather than be some kind of SEO whizkid. Other than that, all that really needs be done is to use the right kind of platform like WordPress for a blog or joomla as a CMS. Make sure to read Google’s webmaster section tips and guidelines for optimization.

Keyword Tools: Generating a list of keywords is the first step towards a long-term SEO plan of action. Everything that needs to be done henceforth is based around a keyword(s). So it is essential to have a nice, long list of keywords with significant query volumes that are being used by competitors.

SEO can be done manually, but it works better using keyword generation tools. The tools are more comprehensive and scientific in how they dig up and rate the keywords based on monetization value. The one that is used a lot is the keyword generation tool from Google Adwords, but there are other options like SpyFu, Wordstream, etc.

Onsite Optimization: The main part of onsite SEO is about matching pages with specific keywords. It’s important to have the keyword in the page title and the URL. Other than that, it’s best to leave things to flow naturally. Keyword insertions within the content, if any, should never break the flow of the page and its message. It’s always better to leave existing content as is and focus on building new landing pages for each keyword.

To make the whole process easy on a long-term basis, use a blog platform or CMS which can automatically generate titles and URLs and create a proper internal linking system, which is a good strategy for all Internet marketing practices. To enhance visitor experience, tweak the design templates, use bigger fonts and improve page loading speed with better back-end scripts and a faster web host.

Link Building: Incoming links are pretty important, as far as search algorithms are concerned. What a link building campaign does is work with the keywords and content creators to acquire targeted links for each page, based on the keyword. The essence of it is to reach out to and establish relationships with like-minded and important website owners. The actual transaction needs a certain amount of experience, so unless the webmaster is aware of terms like three way link deals or sitewide links, it is better to get a professional to do this.

Analytics: After a certain level, poring through raw server logs and the web host’s site stats tool is no longer enough. A growing website needs strong analytics scripts that can pinpoint everything from keywords to referrals, landing page information and visitor demographics, not to mention the all important ad clickthru’s and conversion data. All this provides direction by spotlighting areas with potential and others that need improvement.

To summarize, there is no deep, dark secret behind SEO and internet marketing. Yes, there are tools and software that make life easier, and some tricks of the trade that can help the site grow faster. But the core of it is to have a good product/service to offer visitors, and lots of talent and hard work.

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