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Everyone who has a website wants to be number 1 on Google for their chosen key words/phrases and it is possible, it just takes time and lots of hard work. The reason we all want to come up of the front page of Google is because Google is the most powerful search engine on the internet and delivers the most relevant search results.

Being number one for your chosen keywords is all well and good but what if nobody uses those search keywords? It is very important to research and identify key phrases that for one are not too competitive and two, what people will write into Google. For example if you have a hair salon and wish to come up on the front page for the words 'hair salon' it will take a lot of time and hard work as there are 8,390,000 results on the day of writing this. However if you think locally, say your hair salon is in Halifax, West Yorkshire then you should be trying to target 'Hair salon in Halifax, West Yorkshire'. This produced 121,000 results which is much more attainable. It is much easier to get your site on the front page for search phrases of 3 or 4 words than it is for just 1 or 2 words.

Finding the right key phrases to target is essential in your online marketing plan. There are tools online which can help but why not ask as many people as possible, you will be surprised as many people will use many different search phrases. The more you target the more chances you have of people finding your site. 'Never put all your eggs into one basket' is an old fashioned saying but it is relevant here.

Talking of relevance, relevance is all about being number one on Google. Google is a text analysis system which analyses the text on your site and the links into it from other sites. So your page needs to be very relevant to your search phrases. So if your page is about pink handbags make sure the text states this very clearly and often. Not too often, keyword stuffed is frowned about and could cause you to get banned. You need to write the text as naturally as possible but also ensure there is good keyword density which can be done with trial and error or using online tools.

As well as strong keyword rich text you also need links into your page from other relevant sites. The more links in from other relevant sites is what makes your site popular in the eyes of Google. Finding links can be time consuming but there are some short cuts. There are a few strong directory sites which Google likes so being listed in these is a big boost. Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Business.com and Best of the Web are some of the top ones, but they cost up to $299. Getting in DMOZ is very hard, practically impossible unless you know someone who works there!

Another way of getting links is to write articles about your subject and post them around to some of the strongest articles sites. Ezinearticles.com, articlealley.com is two of the best but there are hundreds more. You can actually buy software which actually posts the articles to hundreds of sites in one go. Potentially this can be a way of getting hundreds of links with quite little effort. This is the reason behind this article. This article is relevant to the page I am trying to promote. At the bottom of the page will be a bio with a link to the page I am trying to promote.

Adding content is another important aspect of search engine marketing. Google treats websites with more than 100 pages of good content differently from smaller sites. This might sound daunting but it really is not. If you are trying to target local traffic in your county you can start off by writing pages about each town, like I explained earlier. You will soon build up your site and before long your site will be 100's of pages and be very authoritative and relevant within your chosen filed.

To summarise:

' Do search phrase research
' Write relevant keyword rich text.
' Try to get links in to your website from authoritive sources.
' Write articles linking to your site and post on as many article directories as possible, remember the all important link back to your page.
' Add content.

If you do all of the above you should start to see an improvement in your rankings and traffic. Having hundreds of hits each day sounds great but if the conversion rate is low they are all wasted hits. What I mean by conversion rate is that if only 2 out of every hundred hits actually buy a product or call you for a quote then there is little use of those hundreds of daily hits and your rankings. First you need rankings, then you have clicks, then you need conversions. So before embarking on search marketing I would make sure your site is the best it could possibly be. Look at your competitors, make your site better, then with a little help from search marketing you could be laughing all the way to the bank.