Rule #6 Don't forget Geographics. If your products and services are local or regional, be sure to include your state or city within your search phrases. For example, an investigations company that conducts most of its business in Midwest would want to choose "Indiana and private investigator."

Rule #7 Take a look at your competition. Based on your top three competitors, look at their website for specific search terms being used. Also, look at their META keywords to get a good idea of what search terms they think are important. Remember you want to look at competitors for your different markets served and products and service lines.

Rule #8 Analyze your website traffic. Make sure your web hosting company provides you with ability to analyze your website log files. Some hosting companies have you log into your account to view monthly web traffic reports, while others email monthly reports. Information obtained can tell you top search terms and search engines used to find your website and other valuable information. To get most out of your log file data, it is recommended to use a log file analyzer such as Web Trends or Urchin.

By applying these simple rules, you will be well on your way to generating highly-targeted keywords and phrases that attract right prospects - prospects who have direct interest in what you have to offer.

Rather have a professional develop your SEO strategy?

Now, once you have compiled your list of keywords, you need to see which one are searched on most. The best tool for this is WordTracker, and it is worth tiny fee you need to pay to have access for one day. There are also free tools online that you can use, but WordTracker will give you most accurate results.

Once you have run through your list of all your keywords, obvious choice is to pick ones with highest amount of searches (and content relevant to your site!). The next step is to then begin process of a link campaign. Now, I can already hear you complaining about doing a link exchange. This is only 1/3 of your campaign. The ideal method is to not only engage in a reciprocal link exchange, but to also engage in strategic linking.

Strategic linking is when you get a link to your site without having to return favor. What's best way to do this? Write an article just like this one. If I get one website to use this article and have it point to my site, I've just created another link to my site. Pretty easy, eh?

Since you have now engaged in a linking campaign, you should expect to see results in Google in as little as 4 days, and as far as 6 months. All of this is determined by where your links are coming from, and popularity of site from which link came. Next, you need to get as many links as you can pointing to your site with your popular keyword phrase anchor linked to your site.

As I mentioned before, there many other factors that wll only enhance your rankings in Google, but omplementation of a link campaign is strongest method to get your site to a top ranking!

-To your online success!

Paul Bliss