After taking on the challenge of running an online business for some time, it will be inevitable for you to learn that the best source of traffic is the one coming from the search engines so that it has become every webmaster’s obsession to have their websites listed in the SERPs (search engine results pages).  You have to formulate a process to make sure that this will happen, but definitely you will not see the fruits of your efforts overnight.  You have to draw up your course of action.

You can say that you have optimized your site already if you can get all your pages to get a rank, but this could be a long drawn process which you cannot complete overnight.  You can do it one page at a time starting with your home page, the face of your site where you want to lead the users so they can see what you have to offer.  Bear in mind that Google ranks the pages, not the entire website.

It is not that complicated.  Follow these three easy tips to improve you search rankings:

1.  Research well what keyword to use
Use any of the discovery tools for keywords such as the Google’s External Keyword Discovery tool and put down the basic term for your products.  You can generate a list and you can begin to choose from it.  Find other terms that you think is applicable for your products and research some more.  Try to find out if there are other more exact words which users could use in their search when looking for your type products or services.  If you use the most likely used keyword, then the possibility of the searcher buying your product becomes very high.
When you have chosen the keyword, you should now monitor the number of times it has been searched in a month.  Ideally there should at least be from 3,000 minimum to 10,000 per month.  It should not be a very common keyword yet good enough to attract sufficient traffic to sustain your business.

See what your competitors are doing in relation to the keyword by searching it in Google and seeing the results.  Investigate the number of links that the leading sites have and determine if you can beat them.

2.  Optimization on-page
Two vital factors that will affect on-page optimization are the meta description tags and the title which should be seen in the HTML portion of your page.  You have to have title loaded with relevant keywords as well as a description.  The keyword which you want to be ranked for should be positioned first for the title and the description.  The title can consist of the three major keywords/phrases which should be segregated using hyphens.  You can also utilize your keywords for promoting the clicks from SERPs.  The most appropriate keyword should be given first priority.

It is important to make use of the keywords in the copy for your site as well.  Your keywords should also be used in our headlines and found enough number of times within the entire article.  Position your keywords properly.  It would be more engaging if you make your style casual and conversational but not forgetting to make use the keywords in the beginning of the article so that it will be prominent in the article.

3.  Optimization off-page
Listing to directories could give you one-way links which will boost your SEO results.  You can also acquire links back from your own blog, other websites, forum participations, commenting on blogs, article directories, press releases and social sites such as Twitter and YouTube.  Every one-way link that will lead back to your site will give your site a vote.  Your ranking will greatly depend on how many votes you will garner.

You can make your SEO undertaking either simple or complex, depending on how much time you are prepared to give to it.  Choosing the best keyword for your niche will definitely get your page a respectable rank.  Follow these tips and you will surely be off to a good start and a nice finish.