Since instigating proper SEO techniques I have seen my web site visitors increase by over 1500%. My conversion rates have also gone from a meagre 0.5% to a very healthy 8%. How has this been achieved? By following seven simple guidelines which have not only seen my visitor figures sky rocket but also the web sites position in the major search engines has gradually improved until it sits on page one for all the important search categories and many surprising ones also.

So what are these seven basic rules I have followed?

1. Develop as many pages as is possible all with good and different content on. The content should be different but obviously related. The content should be written for the visitor not for the search engines. It has to be good sales copy because you are trying to sell a product or a service virtually in an instant so it must grab the attention of the visitor..

2. Develop reciprocal links with related sites. They can be in exactly the same field as you if you are providing a service so long as they are situated away from your area and not directly in competition with you. Do not worry about the page rank of these sites as it is more important that they are relevant to yours service. If you have products which are sold worldwide then it is not quite so simple and you will have to link with sites that have some relevance but not a direct one, otherwise you would be linking with your competitors.

3. Place your link in as many directories as is possible. Most are free and do not require a link back but even if they do it is of no consequence. Do it. Some may require a small fee. It is entirely up to you whether you are prepared to pay this fee. Be careful however because you could end up paying out large sums in total if you do not keep a careful check on the monies paid out. Be selective.

4. Do not direct all your links back to the homepage. Spread the links around the relevant pages.

5. Write articles and submit them to the article distributors. This will give you an ever increasing number of backlinks to your website as the articles get picked up and published on weblogs, websites and ezines. You could find a good article ending up in some very surprising places.

6. Develop a weblog alongside and as part of your website. If this is updated daily then you will ensure that the search engines regularly visit your site and pick up all the updates.

7. Add additional content to your website at least once per week. Do not allow any of your web pages to remain static for any length of time. Even minor changes are good.

All of these things enacted together should see your site climbing through the rankings. As the site progresses towards the first page you will see an ever increasing number of visitors arriving at your site. How many of those are converted into customers depends entirely upon the strength of the copy on the pages and whether it is enticing people to become your customers. It is utterly pointless having many hundreds of visitors to your site if they all depart without interacting in some way with your content.