Now that you’ve completed keyword research and optimized webpage elements such as title tags, meta info and urls, how are you ensuring that your search engine optimization strategy is still working for you? Chances are, if you’ve implemented these web changes and haven’t looked back, it probably isn’t.

But, to help you take your SEO strategy to the next level, we have identified five areas for achieving continuous success:

• Before you begin any new work, make sure all of the optimization you intended to implement has actually been completed because this will become the foundation that you will build upon. You may find in some instances that you’re short a few keywords in the body copy or a title tag includes a keyword you decided you didn’t want to optimize on. Or you may find that you’re in good shape and ready to continue with an ongoing plan. Either way, take a few hours to ensure that every detail and every element has been optimized with one of your target keywords.
• A very important factor in keyword visibility is, and always will be, fresh content. For those of us who sell a service, solution and/or product, it isn’t always easy or resourceful to be adding new web content. But, here is a list that will help guide you when thinking about your search engine optimized content strategy:
  • Expand your existing content
  • Create media content – video, podcasts, photos, etc
  • Leverage blogs
• Conduct an ongoing competitive landscape analysis, talk to your sales team and talk to your field marketers to ensure that the keywords you have optimized on are still relevant to the industry
• External linking is an integral component of a search engine optimization plan as it covers two different tactics – link popularity and traffic.
  • Link popularity is a device created by the search engines to help rank and categorize relevant sites within their index. Each link is essentially a vote for your sites content. And the more votes your site has, the more popular you’ll be in search engine results.
  • External linking should also be used for generating traffic. SEO’s overall goal is to increase website traffic. So don’t ignore websites that can really help take your Internet marketing program to the next level.
• Include internal links to your most important pages to help spiders easily identify which pages they should pay closer attention to. Visitors will also benefit from internal linking since you’ll be promoting related or more in-depth information on a given topic. And, don’t forget to optimize your anchor text as well.

Search engine optimization should be treated as a living and breathing organism – it needs constant attention in order to be truly successful. By conducting ongoing analysis and identifying new and inventive ways to continuously improve your search engine visibility, you’ll be a step ahead of the competition both in your search engine traffic and in the marketplace.