Where can you get the best ROI in online media? The answer is simple: great search engine rankings. Learn what it takes to push your listing to the top with the latest tips from Netconcepts president and CEO Stephan Spencer, SEO and linking strategist Eric Ward, Blue Fountain Media CEO Gabriel Shaoolian, and online marketing veteran Amber Naslund.

Just how important is SEO? "It's like air supply," says Stephan Spencer, president and CEO of Netconcepts. "If you're cut off from it, it's hard to survive as a business."

But as we all know, it's not just about making an appearance; it's about landing your natural listing as close to the top as possible. A recent Jupiter Research study found that 68% of search engine users click on listings that make the first page of results, and only 8% go beyond the first three pages of results.

In addition, the study found that 39% of searchers consider companies who are featured among the top natural search results to be leaders in their field.

So how do you make it onto that first page? Before you even get to that question, however, you need to determine which search queries you should be targeting in the first place. And that means keyword research.

(Note that we are focusing on non-branded search queries here—i.e., when users aren't specifically typing in your company or product name. You'll likely find that it's easier to gain rank in a branded search, and those queries will generally yield higher conversion rates since those users have, in essence, already selected you or your product. But for many companies, the bulk of their traffic—and especially new customers—will most often come through more generic, non-branded queries.)

Various tools are available to assist you in identifying popular keywords for your market; Spencer suggests starting with Google Insights for Search, which allows you to compare search volume patterns by category, geographic region, etc., and Google AdWords Keyword Tool, which offers ideas on other keywords you may want to consider.

Why focus on Google? Because it was the chosen platform for 72% of all Internet searches performed in the US in February 2009, according to Hitwise research.

Hitwise also recently found that more users are performing long-tail searches—with a 10% year-over-year increase for queries averaging five or more words in length and a 22% increase in searches that include eight or more words. So, in addition to individual terms, try to figure out which search phrases are prevalent in your market.

Now let's get to the tips, which will involve leveraging the insight you will have gained through keyword research:

1. Structure your page title tags so that they include—and lead with—one or two important keywords.

The closer those keywords are to the beginning, the more weight they'll carry, so try to work those in ahead of your company name, etc.

2. Edit or rewrite your page content and body copy so that they incorporate the popular keywords identified in your research and reinforce the keywords targeted in your page titles.

"Google is placing less and less importance on links in navigational menus, sidebars, headers, footers etc. Now it is very important to embed links within bodies of text...using relevant anchor text," explained Gabriel Shaoolian, CEO of Blue Fountain Media.

3. Avoid stuffing keywords into your metatags, as well as placing a wall of keywords along the bottom of your page. Those are considered "poor tactics, which can potentially get you penalized by the search engines," Spencer said.

4. Link relevant keywords—instead of linking phrases such as "click here" or "learn more"—that tell both reader and search engine what the page to which you're linking is about.

5. Make sure your most important pages are only a click away from your home page, "or as far up in your site tree as feasible," said Spencer, so that they can reap maximum "link gain" (i.e., rank).

Linking strategist Eric Ward also suggests making space on your homepage to promote your "featured content of the month," then using appropriate keywords to link to your own deep, but valuable, content. "The engines will reward you for that," he said.

6. Develop an XML site map that lists all the important URLs on your site, recommended Spencer, then make that available to the search engines and keep it up to date.

7. Use canonical tags, Spencer further suggests, in order to let the major search engines know which versions of your pages are definitive, so that you're not penalized for duplicate content. 

8. Strive for blended search—multiple brand impressions appearing in the same search results—to help your site appear more substantial and credible both to users and to engines. Users prefer blended search over text-only results and are more likely to click on news, image, and video search results when they appear in blended search, according to a recent Jupiter Research study performed in conjunction with iProspect.

To achieve blended search results, optimize your news, image, or video to attain its own search rank. Your press releases and other news content, for example, should include the appropriate keywords and be posted within a page or two of your homepage, if not directly on your homepage. You might also add images to your news postings to garner more interest.

Also optimize all images and video on your site by including keywords in the image file name. It will further work to your advantage to incorporate keywords into the titles and descriptions of your videos posted on YouTube and images displayed on Flickr, Spencer said.

9. Launch a blog and update it regularly with interesting, keyword-rich posts. "Google loves blogs," online social media specialist Amber Naslund explained, pointing out the engine's partiality for "fresh, dynamic content that's updated all the time."

10. Engage in paid search for the keywords you've targeted. "If you appear high up in both paid and natural search together, and your competitor doesn't, searchers will see that and click more frequently on your natural listing," said Spencer. "It's an implied endorsement...and your best opportunity to punch above your weight."

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Still at a loss? Ward suggests studying the sites that outrank you to figure out what they're doing differently. "Analyze their back links; look at the features on their sites," he said. You'll gain additional insight you need to work your way to the top.

Check out A Primer: What Is Search Marketing? for a basic overview of search marketing and Twenty Questions to Ask When Crafting a Search Marketing RFP to learn how to solicit an outside firm to conduct your SEO and other search marketing programs. As a Premium Member, you have free access to these and hundreds of other Premium articles, case studies, templates, tools, research, and "how-to" guides to help you rapidly build effective marketing programs.