The Internet has turned into a lucrative business. Search Engine Optimization can easily be defined as: The practice of obtaining high search engine rankings by performing keyword research, modifying the HTML code to reflect such keywords and building relationships with other websites to promote your site via a linking campaign.

Search Engine Optimization can be performed by anyone who has the ability to learn and has knowledge of basic HTML. In fact, search engine optimization has more to do with marketing than it does programming. Search engines rank your site by a complex mathematical equation called an algorithm or "algo" for short. This algorithm is written and designed by individuals who are mathematical wizards who hold PhD's. It's truly amazing, for example, that Google is able to organize nearly 9 billion web pages using nothing but a mathematical equation. Because the rankings are based on math there is some predictability to how they are organized and what one must do to rank well. The question is should you do it yourself or hire a search engine optimization company. I personally decided to do it myself as I enjoy learning new things and the multiple levels of strategy in Search Engine Optimization is very challenging and rewarding.

Before performing any Search Engine Optimization you must first determine what keywords your buyers or avid readers search for within your industry. What you call your products or Subject about a particular topic and what your buyers call your products or Subjects of Topics may be two different things.

You will want to optimize for all terms within your industry but primarily focus on the terms most often searched for by your prospects. To research keywords you have a few different options and they include:

Google Adwords/Adsense – Google Adwords is a great way to help you advertise your site and or sell a product, there is a fee based on this which you can tailor to your budget. Google Adsense will merely guide traffic to other sites that are relevant to the page that you are reading so the interested reader will be sent to the right place rather than to some other web site that has no bearing on the topic they are reading at the time.

Wordtracker - Wordtracker helps you choose the right internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Wordtracker is a fee based service.

Overture - Overture is a PPC or Pay Per Click service provider that powers search engines like Yahoo and Alta-Vista. They provide a free Search Term Suggestion Tool that can be found on their Advertiser Center page.

Word Tracker provides assistance in developing related keywords. You’re likely to find that the most common keywords will be easier to determine than secondary keywords. It’s recommended by some creating a focus group to come up with every keyword or name you or your employees have ever heard a customer call your product or Subject topic on your web site and then research these keywords for there search frequency. You rank these keywords from most, to least likely searched on search engines.

This is a very time consuming method, but once you've determined your target keywords you're well on your way to successful search engine optimization. To speed things up 1000 times faster, you’re better off using Keyword Elite by Brad Callen, it comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

If you're just starting out building your website you'll also be able to develop your website structure around your keywords. For example, you can assign the home page your most common keywords where as secondary keywords will be assigned to second and third level pages. Typically the less often a keyword is searched the deeper within your site it will be assigned to a page. Each page can be assigned anywhere from one to three keywords. In the purest sense each page should be optimized for a separate keyword, but this can make your website hard to use and convert fewer customers and the search engines might see you as spamming. Before optimizing it is also highly recommended that you read what is considered good and bad optimization from a search engines point of view. These are guidelines that Google and Yahoo publish.

Google Search Engine Optimization Guidelines

Yahoo Search Engine Optimization Guidelines

When deciding if you should perform your own search engine optimization or hiring someone else you should consider a few factors. The biggest is that the rulebook on good versus bad search engine optimization is somewhat unwritten. Although the search engines provide guidelines, they do now stipulate every rule. You may, as a beginner, break a rule and not even know it and get your site banned and possibly dropped from the search engines.

Let's now move on to On and Off page Components.