Search engine positioning is imperative for gaining online visibility, credibility and website traffic. Call it ego gratification or simply human nature for individuals, businesses, or blogger's alike to aspire to carve their name into the #1 spot on the digital totem pole and claim their place at the helm of Google, Yahoo or MSN as the hands down victor of the daily search engine wars. There is nothing quite like that top 10 feeling, even more so, if you're feeling lucky and play your cards right, you may in fact, lay claim to the pole position on a series of high volume keywords as a result of this tactic.

The sad truth about this is, working hard to achieve a competitive term can be short lived as you may celebrate your top 10 victory before going to sleep, only to wake and find your site punted to a less than satisfactory 12 positions into the nether regions of the 2nd page. Just be prepared, if you aren't defending your keep, all is fair in love and war, and as you know, the competition never sleeps.

Being at the top of the food chain has it's advantages, whereas in this instance it's the top of the organic listings in Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Ask, MSN and the other top tier search engines that is the prize sought by millions of proud online participants. The advantages are obvious, so without digressing into the reasons why it is important to be in the top 10 organic search results, let's take a brief look at the two types of search engine positioning that can either be (a) the greatest sense of elation you have ever felt in your adult life or (b) the reason why you lose sleep at night thinking about all the traffic you missed, from one slip off the rung.

The Two Types of Search Engine Optimization

In essence there are only two types of optimization, intentional optimization (the words and key phrases you aspire to attain) and the unintentional key phrases (hey that's great I will take it as well) optimization. The first typically occurs through meticulous keyword research, building backlinks, link hunting (browsing through your competitors links and looking for patterns, similarities, tactics, etc.) as well as employing various website promotion strategies to catapult your site into the top 10.

The other type of optimization comes through semantic relationships of the keywords your pages are optimized for (or your competitors) triggering responses from search queries and giving the one with the most relevance (or backlinks with the keyword in question in the anchor text) the vote of higher search engine positioning.

One example of intentional optimization are when companies strategically purchase or use a URL with the keywords in the name. Although this is slightly off topic, it deserves a sentence or two to at least bring the tactic to light.

For the sake of elaboration, a website with a keyword in the URL typically has precedence over sites that do not have those keywords in the name (title or description). For this reason strategically it makes sense that if you wanted to rank for a term from the start, then you may wish to consider purchasing a domain with the keywords in the title. Owning the URL and not hosting your site there (just pointing at your current domain through domain forwarding) is not as effective as actually hosting your old site there and performing a 301 redirect at a new keyword-rich URL to give the new address a dose of link love and juice from your previous link building efforts. This is only one of many types of intentional optimization utilized for website positioning.

Another example of intentional optimization is through the use of deep links to give your internal pages more ranking potential from using the key phrases that comprise those internal pages as the anchor text (the text used in the link) for link building when you are developing backlinks from related or authority websites. This of course is nothing new, and when applicable you can control what is in the link instead of "click here", depending on the website, if it's a directory, a press release or article. The ideal method of course is writing an article and using the author's resource box to add your leading keyword as a hyperlink to you site or in the instance that it's a blog post, you ultimately get to control the hyper link, the page it points to and the text used to link. For this reason, blogs are the hands down best choice for building links using a platform like word press which by default works wonderfully for optimization purposes if employed correctly.

In any case, this revolves around intentional optimization. The icing on the cake comes later when you realize that if you optimize enough terms that are less competitive, your site begins to move up the tail (the rungs of associated keyword combinations) so to speak and starts to rank for terms with higher relevance and traffic over time as the process gestates.

As a result, it is not uncommon to begin toppling associated key phrases, based on the strength of your content and optimization method. In layman's terms, if you are targeting a category for search engine positioning, the logical thing to do is use "exact match phrases" in the description and body copy when applicable. This creates an association with your site when those same queries are searched for online, much like a signal flare calling in the search and rescue team.

The glue between on page optimization and off page optimization is the volume and quality of the backlinks your pages receive from other websites. Controlling how your website is linked to can mean the difference between you ranking for "click here to visit" or "your main keywords", so if the links pointing at your pages happen to have those same "exact match phrases" your pages are geared toward, then guess who is going to rank higher (at least in some search engines, mainly Google based on personal experience) which is great, for intentional search engine positioning.

Another by-product is, since you know that this process is the underlying basis of ranking higher in search engines (at least for the time being, until other methods are in place to determine relevance). Then choosing the right words for link building are far more important than just making an assumption and using any old text for link development.

As an example, according to word tracker (a keyword research tool), the term search engine optimization for example has a daily search volume of 14,329 per day (which is an extremely high search volume). However if you add one word to it like search engine optimization company or search engine optimization services for example the daily search volume is 323 a day and 292 a day respectively, quite a decrease from the root phrase.

In addition to that, the competition for those terms is also proportionately less than the root phrase. So say for example that you wanted to get a piece of the action and optimize that keyword for your website, the last place you would want to start is at the top of the food chain. It's almost like a newborn hatchling trying to take on the king of the jungle, at very best it's amusing and typically results in a frustrating exercise in optimization.

However, on the other hand, if you start at the bottom of the chain and work your way up, chances are you will amass numerous top 10 positions, grow your traffic organically within the realm of that keyword and unintentionally optimize several keyword combinations as a result of covering the pivotal terms ("through exact match, anchor text link building") which would later be used in unison during long-tail or more specific queries from prospects performing searches.

So, ideally one should always try to start small and work your way up the chain but also try not to overuse the secondary lesser terms too much otherwise you may only be able to rank for them specifically in that exact order. One remedy is (a) use the root phrase in the descriptions and on page (b) build links with the secondary terms to cover your bases. This becomes apparent later if you try to optimize the less popular terms first and then attempt to go for the main meat and potatoes which is in my opinion more difficult.

By keeping your descriptions and titles lofty with the supreme goal in mind, when you do hit the appropriate digital density to topple the equation in your favor, your pages are already-ready-already as you grow your site into those proverbial key phrases / shoes.

So, remember, don't think like a hatchling, trying to take on a lion at this point is futile, grow your keyword list and strategically acquire rankings (one key phrase at a time) and eventually you will attain the top ranking keywords in your niche.

In the meantime, aside from discouraging others trying to figure out just how you climbed that ladder, your job is to stay ahead of the pack and keep abreast of the next emerging high search volume keywords that can rank all the way to the bank. Catch the wave in time, and you can ride it all the way to the shore and have just enough time to capitalize on it before it spirals down the chain.

About the Author

Jeffrey L. Smith is an seasoned search engine optimization strategist and founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Web Design Company in Chicago. Jeffrey has been involved in Internet Marketing since 1995 and brings unique optimization methods and search engine solutions for businesses seeking organic search engine positioning.