Search engine optimization (SEO) is as much art as it is science, and it’s by no means a simple undertaking. That said there are three simple SEO tactics that you should be implementing that will help your search engine rankings, and many companies overlook them. These 3 tactics aren’t going to make your search engine optimization needs disappear, but if you can get your marketing team to embrace them, then SEO will come a little easier. Make them habits!

1. Create a keyword list.

Most companies I speak with don’t have an established, well thought out list of keywords around which they should be optimizing. A keyword list can be built with Google’s Keyword Tool fairly easily. Just pick 10, 20, 30 keywords that people would use to search for your products and services using Google, Yahoo, or Bing. You can refine your assumptions using the keyword tool so that you are using keywords that have a decent number of searches each month.

When building your list, you should consider two things… 1) be sure to pick a reasonable number of keywords. In a perfect world you’d have a website page devoted to each keyword (two at most). So if you pick 50 keywords you’d need a decent number of site pages for optimization. Narrow it down and be realistic. 2) Populate your keyword list with some that are really competitive and hard to rank on and some that are easy to rank on. Once you start ranking on some that are easy to rank on Google tends to give you more love on those that are harder to rank on. Go figure… it’s Google!

2. Use your keyword list.

This may sound really intuitive but you need to actually use your keywords where they are most appropriate for search engine optimization to really work. If one of your keywords is “wireless headsets”, then us it in your URL for that particular page; in the Meta title, description, H1 tag, alt image tag. Use it in the first paragraph of your page copy and interlink it to another page of relevance. Bold it or italicize it once in the copy. Use it more than once in the copy, but be sure to write to your audience, NOT Google.

Use your keyword list in Tweets, Facebook updates, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and link the keyword back to your respective webpage. Use it where ever it makes sense… blog comments, forum posts, etc. Just be relevant and respectful.

3. Create dynamic content using your keywords.

Website pages tend to be static; they don’t change much. Write blogs (if you don’t have a blog you should read why dynamic content is critical today) using your keywords. Then share that blog at your social media sites and syndicate it to content aggregators like Digg,  StumbleUpon and the like. Google loves fresh content and create well optimized, dynamic content around your keywords will help your rankings.

These are only a few elements of good search engine optimization, but they are certainly a core foundation. If you can get your marketing team to use your keywords it will become habitual and go a long way in helping to improve your search engine rankings. Good luck!