Search engine optimization by some is considered a science and by others a game. Over time working on many sites and promoting them made me realize some of the basic techniques. There are many books available about the subject, and almost unlimited resources on the Internet. But the fact of the matter is, the true SEO guru's do not give up their secrets because they are very valuable and once a secret is passed out it's no longer an asset.

Based upon the keyword, or keyword phrase that you would like to capitalize on, the engines determines how you're going to be ranked. As long as you're not trying to tackle a keyword or keyword phrase that receives over 100,000 clicks per month there are a few basic things you should know. First and foremost is the value of incoming links and the sites in which these links come from. Many feel that reciprocal linking is one of the best methods to promote your site. Over and over I have found that one-way links are much more beneficial.

OK, you have a site that has reasonable PR and use it to put links that point to the site that you wish a link back from. But the difference is, their link coming back points into a different site location of yours in which you're trying to promote. This gives you the benefit of a text link, (were called anchor text link), passing the PR credit from their site to your site and you passing a link back to them from another site. In this approach your particular page or site you are trying to promote does not have to have a link pointing back to them. This keeps more PR for your pages in which you're trying to market and also allows your important pages not to have miscellaneous outgoing links that do not pertain to the keyword phrase in which are trying to market.

One of the great benefits of one-way Link exchange is time. Many of the sites in which you do link exchange will continue to increase in PR and then ranking. Typically the sites that do link exchange, that are of good quality, have a reason to continue in their marketing efforts and as time goes on your text link on their site becomes more and more valuable. This is not a short-term approach by any means, but it is highly effective in which I've seen top engine ranking on some of the toughest keywords that you can find just from using this approach. Yes there are other basics of how the pages are written and also the internal linking of the site which are all very important, but not near as important as links.

As you know when working with Google there is a timeframe that you must meet in excess of 90% of the time on any keyword that has value. This time frame is usually around six months before they will allow you to rank any type of traffic keyword with any reasonable positioning unlike Yahoo. Google will rank sites based upon the quantity and quality of the link. People believe that the content of the site that is pointing a link to you is important. In most all cases I have found that the content is not important. Yes many of you are going to say this is not correct but I can show it on site after site without a doubt. You can find links or trade links on other sites that are not content related and yet benefit from them immensely. Here's a little trick if you have some time to waste and do not understand the power of links with search engines. This will prove effective immediately for Yahoo getting you ranking in three weeks or less on your keyword. With Google this method also works but again there is that time constraint you have to keep in mind. Take a site the you already have and place a page on it for a new keyword that you're seeking or an alternative of the keyword that you're currently using. Spend 10 or more hours pointing friendly blogs into that page using a text link that follows directly in relation to the keyword you are trying to market. If the keyword phrase that you are after is a gray cat's, then make sure that the link from the blog pointing to your great cats page says great cats in the link. This page in which you perform this test on honestly does not even need 20 words. It can be black-and-white with no outgoing links to any other page on your site or any other sites period. Based upon what the traffic of this keyword, and how difficult the competition is, you can actually make this rank on page 1 with Yahoo in less than one month.

What kind of SEO work is this? It is considered black Seo and can cause you some complications in the future. I do not recommend this as a common practice. In short you can build many sites and use different linking strategies to promote one or more sites with them, or you can do link exchange, preferably one-way links.

In time this approach with a well-designed site that has good content and is not an artificial front end for another site will produce excellent results in your quest to get top positioning on the engines.

I have self trained, starting at the bottom of the ladder, and reaching the top of Google and Yahoo on keyword phrases sought after by multimillion dollar companies from my own bedroom. You can believe what you have read here, or you can spend a fortune having someone else do this task for you, but one way or another it is work, and it takes a lot of time and effort.

I wish you luck and prosperity.

Bill Peters is a freelance writer for Exchangenet.com and has been an active and successful SEO in a very competitive market.