The importance of search engine positioning to your ultimate success cannot be overemphasized. It is not just that search engine advertising is free, but also that your position  in one particular search engine can also affect your listing in another.

However, that is a minor benefit compared to the exposure that a high position in a search engine such as Google or Yahoo can provide you with.  A first page position in any search engine is valuable, but in Google it is gold dust. That is because Google is the largest search engine on the planet, and more people use it for information that any other.

Since the first page is the farthest that most people look when looking for information, then a high position is essential. Some will go to the next page, and even fewer to page three, but after that you might as well not be listed. It is estimated that around 20% of searchers will go to the second page and another  5% to the third page.

It is obvious, then, that your search engine positioning must at least be in the first 20 results for it to be worthwhile, although Page 1 would appear to be the holy grail. In making these statements about search engine positions, it should be understood that your pages are listed separately, and that the listing or position is for one keyword or search term only.  Thus, any of your pages can be listed, and for any number of different keywords, although generally one web page receives a high listing for one keyword only.

The question is how do you achieve a Page 1 search engine listing that provides you with all the resultant benefits?  You can do it, but it will take some work.  A high listing position on any search engine does not come cheaply, and Google is especially difficult.  However, if you follow some simple rules you can make it easier, and through time you will achieve that coveted Page 1 listing.

I will not waste time in explaining the simple SEO on-page techniques that you can find on any Google page if you search for them. What you need to get ahead of the pack is advice that will enable you to achieve a large number of links back to your website.  When you read about linking strategies you will likely read that you should try for links to pages deep withing your website.  Nonsense!  You have little chance of deep pages being listed and should expend all of your efforts on the listing of your home page.

It is the home page that is listed the highest of just about all websites, and you should do your best to get that listed with as high a search engine positioning as you can. Ignore all that advice about internal pages:  if your home page gets listed people will visit your internal pages of your site is interesting enough, and that is up to you.

The best way to get that coveted Page 1 position is to write articles. Write as many as you can, submit them to as many article directories as you can and provide a link to your home page on each article.  Write the articles in general terms about your main topic,  so that your home page is regarded as relevant to each article.

However, to be blunt, relevance is irrelevant!  You are not looking for visitors. They might be good to have, but visitors do not get you a high search engine results position.  Links do. In this case links are better than visitors, and believe me, you will get plenty of visitors once you get onto that first page.  All this is contrary to what you might have been advised to date, but each part of your internet marketing campaign must be focused on one end result, not several.

Thus, if your objective in one part of your campaign is to get a high position in the search engines, then forget about visitors and traffic. Concentrate on getting the position.  If the objective is get more traffic, then forget the search engines:  concentrate on what gets you most traffic.  Do not try to kill too many  birds with one stone or you will miss them all.  A bird the bush is worth a dozen in the hand!

If you want a good search engine position don’t spend your time trying to get traffic.  Write your article and use your home page as the link in your resource box.  The content of your article is totally irrelevant, although if your website deals with cats don’t write about dogs. At least pay lip service to the topic.  This is totally impure article marketing, but it gets results.

Always remember when trying to improve your search engine positioning: work to achieve that and nothing else, and ignore anybody who tells you that traffic is more important.  Sure, traffic is important, but so is jelly at a child’s birthday party but you don’t make the jelly while baking the cake. One thing at a time, or you will make a mess of both.