Search engine optimization has always been a challenge for new websites. The mechanics are pretty straightforward in that you want to communicate exactly what your website is about to the search engines. You can do that by having your keywords in your domain name, title, description, and of course your website content. One thing to always keep in mind is that every web page stands on it’s own, so just doing working on your home page only helps that page. All these elements have to be correct on all web pages in your website.

Onsite SEO is easy to do as you create your website and there is no reason not to incorporate the basics. The real benefit is that you create a better user experience too. But due to the millions (and now even billions) of websites that are competing for search engine traffic, onsite only will do so much for your rankings. This has cranked up the impact of offsite methods and so many website owners are concentrating more on offsite SEO.

Offsite SEO involves getting links from other websites of the same subject matter and that have some authority (that’s the PR rank between 1-10 Google assigns). This only applies to Google but since they receive the largest amount of searches you need to make this a priority.

The method of linking is important too. Just using your website url in your link does not help with specific keywords. You need to use the A reference tag to display your keywords and have the web page linked underneath. This method of linking is called Anchor Text and is the preferred method of linking when you can use HTML. There are actually two reasons to use anchor text links. One is that the search engines attach value to that web page for that keyword or term, the other is that the user is more inclined to click on a subject oriented link than just a straight url.

You can create these links by participating in forums, on blogs, and popular websites in your subject area. You can also buy links (frowned upon by search engines), start a Pay Per Click campaign on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, advertise in both online and offline publications, write and publish articles, or even do direct mail campaign to a targeted group of prospects.

But chance are good that 80% of the work you do doesn’t really translate into getting visitors to your website and increasing revenue. The 80-20 rule has been around forever and there’s a reason. Time and time again, in almost any measurable area, it rears its ugly head. The trick has always been to try and determine which 20% is working the best.

And it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. Many website owners get caught up in the traffic maze and forget that number of visitors is not the goal. It’s the revenue produced. The goal is to increase revenue, traffic is a big part of that but the bottom line is how much did my revenue increase. Traffic that also buys, clicks, or whatever you want them to do is the goal.

The only way to determine which method of offsite SEO is working is to test. The return on investment, whether it be time and effort or cost, should always be tracked. If you take the time to set up a method of determining the return on any efforts, you will be able to see what is of greater value.

And since all of the search engines constantly update their method of ranking, you can’t just stop testing. Google probably changes most often but all three of the majors do modify their ranking analysis algorithms (these are automated software programs that constantly visit your website and others to determine relevance to any given keyword or phase). Nothing stands still on the Internet; change is the rule of thumb.

So monitoring your ongoing efforts is important. What may have worked last month may not be working as well this month. Although the 80-20 rule may be consistent, the 20% may move around. Never forget that the competition is always out there and working too.