This is a guest post by Brandon Connell who’s blog you can check out @ http://www.brandonconnell.com

Back in the days when search engines were wet behind the ears, webmasters were able to make due with tricks such as a quick meta tag tweak. Nowadays, you aren’t likely to get very far, even with a 100% optimized website. There are so many websites out there, and Google is in the business of finding and sorting through them. On top of that, every website is competiting for keywords and keyphrases, so how does one go about getting the magic optimization? One doesn’t.

Today, you need much more than search engine optimization in order to stand out; You need SEM (search engine marketing) as well. When I talk about seo or sem to clients, I often find myself discussing social media marketing too. Your ability to compete relies heavily on your ability to network. Inbound links are a must to generate traffic, and get top 10 results in search engines. On top of that, you really need to focus on building your Alexa traffic rank and your Technorati authority if you plan on having advertisers on your website.

The process starts with seo. You get your spankin’ new website, and now you have to make sure it is 100% optimized and ready to be read by search engine spiders. This involved page naming, meta tags, alt tags, video content, web 2.0 link navigation, content, etc. Without this, you can’t even say that you have done the basics. Once you are optimized, you have to move on because waiting for results is futile (like my nerd Borg reference?).

The next step in the game is blogging. Without a blog, you aren’t adding nearly enough fresh content to your website. If your new website is a blog, then you don’t have to worry. Using a standalone blog is best, and I recommend WordPress as it is very extensive and the functionality cannot be compared to anything out there (don’t try and argue with me about this). When you get your blog, make sure that you write something new and fresh daily, or at least schedule your posts to publish something daily. Utilize the free plugins out there that allow readers to share your articles on social networks and social bookmarking websites. This is a huge part of your marketing process, and you don’t even have to do the marketing!

Sign up for social networks, and import your rss feeds to the ones that allow it. An example would be Facebook and LiveJournal. This will bring in traffic, and help you build those much needed inbound links. On top of that, people who are already using those social networks but haven’t heard of you may end up being regulars on your blog and share the wealth with others. It is important that you actually take part in the activities of these social networks so that you can connect with people and not give off that spam smell.

Bookmark your own articles via social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Current.com, and others. These sites publish newly submitted items for readers to see, and they often bring in traffic to your site.

Release content on article websites, and make it exclusive content. There is no need to republish the same article across multiple publishing sites. This will only dilute the article’s effectiveness. Count it as a very healthy inbound link. Every article you publish establishes you as an expert and drives in that traffic, and inbound links to appreciative readers.

If you haven’t caught on yet, inbound links and outside traffic is the name of the game for the current seo industry. Without it, you have a highly optimized website with zero visitors.

In order to track your efforts, it is important to use tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, C-Panel’s Webalizer, C-Panel’s latest visitors, and additional stats tracking plugins within WordPress itself. Using statistics tools is vital to knowing how effective your marketing plan is.

Is your seo upgraded?

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