There are many stages to achieving great organic listings.
1. Your site should be about something you are an expert on.
2. A good site plan should be thought out before you begin marketing.
3. Scope out the competition to see how competitive your keyword landscape is.
4. Decide what keywords you want to use prior to making your site (and before each page), and include them in your meta tags , page copy, page title, and file names when possible.
5. Your site should be easy to navigate and search engine friendly.
6. Each page should have a specific focus which is strongly and thoroughly maintained throughout.
7. Submit your site to the directories.
8. (not required) Search for spam in your keywords and report spam results. Some search engines (such as Yahoo!) actively edit their search results and you may be able to get spammy competitors removed.
9. Build a linking campaign. (Link building is the single most important step to EFFECTIVE SEO.)
10. Repeat what steps you feel necessary until you achieve top rankings. This is an ongoing process for most sites (especially in competitive fields).
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