1. The SEO Puzzle Pieces<br />SEO can be thought of as a kind of puzzle. Like most puzzles, SEO is sometimes confusing, challenging, and downright frustrating. It takes time to put together, and in order to do so; you need all of the pieces to fit into the right places. Without each piece playing its role, the puzzle will not be complete. An effective SEO strategy includes the following pieces:<br />Research<br />Before starting an SEO campaign it’s important to do some research. It’s important to understand your target audience and their behaviors online. Competitor research is also important. Find out how your competition is advertising and marketing online. This can be done by searching for them in the search engines and by conducting a link audit that will tell you where they have a presence online. <br />A Good Website<br />Before putting any effort into optimizing a site, it’s important to make sure that it’s worth the effort. Traffic is meaningless if the visitors don’t convert. Make sure that call to actions are strategically placed and make it easy for a visitor to convert. The structure should be clean ant the navigation should be easy to use. The business goals should be reflected in the site design and structure. It’s also important to ensure that all pages of the site load quickly. <br />Keywords<br />Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to search. It’s important to do keyword research to find out how people are searching and what their intent is. The words that you choose ultimately determine who will find your website. Missing important keywords will result in missing out on potential clients and customers. <br />Content<br />Website content should be written for visitors first, and the search engines second. Incorporate keywords naturally for SEO purposes. The search engines rank websites based on text content, not on design or graphics. The content should always support the goals of the website and company or business. Avoid grammar and spelling errors that will turn off prospects. <br />Meta Tags<br />Along with optimizing content, the meta tags are part of the on-site component of SEO. Incorporate keywords into the meta title, meta description, H1, and image tags. <br />Links<br />First, conduct a link audit to understand what links you already have and work off of that to add to and improve your link portfolio. Common link building strategies include article marketing and document sharing, social networking, directory submission, blogging, press release distribution, and video marketing. Link building is an ongoing process that should be planned ahead. The best link building campaign is built over time. <br />Analysis<br />Analyze and optimize your SEO campaign based on results. Sign up for Google Analytics to track how web traffic interacts with your website and what keywords led to visitors. This information is important to know in order to make necessary changes to your website or link building strategy.<br />About the Author:<br />Brick Marketing is a Boston SEO company that offers internet marketing services. For more information please call 877-295-0620 or visit http://www.brickmarketing.com. <br />