Any good search marketing campaign has a multi-pronged approach to achieving top rankings. Blending such factors as site structure, content relevance, and online press releases will influence your site’s chances for success. Starting in 2011, engagement is a key metric that can be measured by activity in the social networks and how much time is spent by users on your site.

By publishing and then pulling content from social media, you increase the number of brand searches and drive more traffic to your website.

Once an SEO gets to a certain level of expertise, he or she can typically select a list of key phrases and map out exactly what steps are necessary to get those phrases ranked. This week's infographic demonstrates what that equation for ranking success may look like for a long-tail phrase.

The strategy behind the addition of articles to a website is typically twofold: provide insightful information for current / potential clients and create valuable content for search engines. This week's infographic illustrates some simple tips for making certain your articles have the best potential for being found both by readers and search engines.

Perhaps the greatest benefits of organic SEO are the unexpected rankings a site can get by earning a top spot in the engines. This week's infographic demonstrates how, through solid search marketing, related phrases can get ranked without additional or intentional efforts.

Don't make the mistake of thinking content that isn't html-based can't be optimized. A PDF document gives SEOs one more chance at ranking for targeted keywords. This week's infographic illustrates some simple tips for optimizing PDFs.

A search engine marketing campaign isn't complete without including some elements of social media. While engaging in social media alone can provide impressive results, this week's infographic illustrates how properly planned tactics can have a positive impact on your search results.

The Algorithm. If an SEO had a nickel for every time that phrase was mentioned in a day. Over time we've become more comfortable with the main triggers that affect search rankings. But, it's leveraging the sum of all factors that can really give you an advantage over the competition. This week's infographic explores the lengthy list of both well proven and somewhat subjective factors that go into a ranking algorithm.

Although occasionally used on its own, paid search can be a great complement to an organic optimization strategy. Research has shown that having a presence in both natural and paid results increases the overall likelihood of receiving a click. This infographic breaks down some of the main ways in which PPC advertisers can positively affect campaign click-through rates.

It's hard to dispute that the Long Tail is an important concept in Search. A lot of times, though, we tend to think of the long tail as being a B2C concept by relating it to specific product names in ecommerce situations. But, it's just as relevant in the B2B world. One-word phrases bring businesses up against a lot of competition, but the benefit of increased traffic may outweigh the expense of ranking. On the flip side, credibility-building site assets like case studies can be optimized with longer-tail phrases in order to boost the probability of conversion. Where does your SEM campaign fit into the curve?

When it comes to SEO, there are certain elements that need to be in place for any newly-designed or updated website. Have 301 redirects been put into place? Is the robots.txt file authored to allow adequate crawling? This infographic depicts a handy checklist that will help get you through any new site launch or transition.

Keyword research involves so much more than just looking up search frequencies. Critical factors such as budget restrictions, competition levels, and business strategy must be considered in order to develop a results-driven search marketing plan.

Part 2 of our 3-part series infographic details an essential element of keyword research: exploring conversations that are happening on the web. By combing through competitive and industry websites, relevant blog postings, and popular tag sites, new phrases are discovered and search frequencies can be determined.

When you begin the process of keyword research, the first step is to think like your target audience and how they would enter the phrases for what they are searching for.

Depending on your search marketing strategy, the keywords you select should align with the areas that you are targeting.

Image optimization is a powerful way to visually display your products in the results of search engine queries.

Smart search marketers utilize eCommerce optimization to make every web page instantly accessible to searchers.

Tagging allows the user to label content they find on the web in a way that will be easy for them to remember.

When optimizing for highly-competitive terms, strategically clustering related phrases around the main keyword can cause a halo effect in the SERPs.

The strongest search marketing campaigns pursue rankings for a combination of high-traffic phrases that are likely to bring many visitors to the site as well as highly-specific, 3- or 4-word phrases that are more likely to convert a targeted buyer.