Whether you are a “do-it-yourself-er” or just looking to learn the basics of search engine optimization you need to understand one thing first.

There is no magic bullet to SEO.  No special tricks. No secret sauce.  Everything you ever wanted to know about search marketing is available on the internet if you know where to look and what to look for.  There are right and wrong things you can do so be careful.  Do the wrong thing and you could cause your site all kinds of problems including getting your site banned.

So these six steps below are the foundation to your learning.  They are the beginning steps or blueprint to every successful search marketing campaign.

Lets get started.

Step One: Understanding Your Keyword Universe
Your “keyword universe” refers to all the key terms that a searcher may use to find your business/site on the internet.  The important thing to understand here is, just having a large list of terms is not sufficient to help optimize your site.  You need to understand the competitive nature of those terms and the volume of searches each term typically gets.  There are many tools out there that can help you research terms such as WordTracker.  Tools like these will help you determine which keywords have the best potential to reach your marketing goals.

Step Two: Your Site and Your Visitor
There is an old adage I used to use when talking to clients, “Build your site with the user in mind first and you will take care of the search engines at the same time.” If you stop and think about it your ultimate goal is giving the end user what they are looking for.  And that is exactly what the search engines want too.  If you build your site professionally and follow a few guidelines the search engines have spelled out, you will successfully build a site that please both the user and the search engines.

Step Three: The Engines and Your Site
The search engines want your site to be successful…provided it gives their user what they are looking for…relevant content.  If you do a search for “nike shocks” the search engines only want to show sites that are related to that term.  Try and fool them by using techniques and tricks to manipulate the results and you may see success that is short lived.  Develop content around a topic that is of interest and value to your potential visitor and the search engines will consider you a valuable addition to their index.

Step Four: Link-ability Equals Popularity
Like it or not the internet is one large popularity contest.  The more people that link to what you have to say or offer the higher the value is given to your site.  Search engines use their complicated algorithms to determine who is the most popular and ranks them accordingly.  Now that is a very very simple explanation of how search engine results work (there are many factors beyond who links to you), but in a nutshell, that’s really all it is.  You can become popular by becoming linkable. You become linkable by having informative and valuable content that others want to share with their visitors.

Step Five: Track and Learn
Knowing how to track your search engine traffic and interpret that data will help you monitor and improve your search marketing campaign.  You will uncover terms that you thought were your money terms but in fact are actually duds.  You will also find terms you may never have thought of.  It will also help you find topics for content that your user is actively looking for a solution for.  “See a need, fill a need.” – from Disney’s movie Robots.

Final note: Don’t think you have to go this alone.  The amount of time and effort it takes to mount a successful search campaign can be daunting.  And in the end most people are better at running their businesses then they are are search marketing.  Don’t resort to black-hat tactics looking for that quick fix.  If you get overwhelmed remember there are professionals out there for a reason.  The have dedicated their careers to understanding and working to hone the art of search marketing.