By Nick Kush, CEO of search engine marketing company Kush Media Development. (I'm the guy who will be physically optimizing and marketing your website).

There are two primary factors when it comes to obtaining website rankings for keyword phrases in search engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN. These are on-site optimization techniques and off-site back linking .

On-Site Optimization is offered by all search engine optimizers. If you have a website about “widgets,” then you need optimization work physically placed on your website for “widgets” and related keyword phrases like “buying widgets,” “widget stores,” etc. Optimization occurs in the form of actual text placed on your website. I stress text because images or flash graphics are not read by search engines, and are thereby mostly useless from an SEO (search engine marketing) perspective. You might have a beautiful site with impressive looking graphics and flash, but search engines can't “read” images. It is important to physically have your relevant keywords and keyword phrases embedded onto your actual web pages of your website using the correct methods.

The second and more often overlooked aspect to search engine marketing is building backlinks . Many search engine optimizers simply skip this step altogether and just “submit” your site to search engines using their submission form. This is largely ineffective, because the internet is so large, with so many competing websites, that even the most perfect website optimization won't guarantee you rankings or web traffic.

This is where the concept of backlinking comes into place. Generally speaking, the more links pointing to your website, the higher it will rank in search engines. Search engines want to place the most relevant websites at the top of their rankings, and the biggest way that they determine who has the most relevant website is to look at the number of links pointing to that website. A website with 20 backlinks pointing to it would obviously rank much higher than a website with 0 backlinks pointing to it.

How I Build Backlinks Pointing to Your Website

When I build backlinks to a website, I arrange to have real, physical links placed on other websites pointing to your website. The reason why so many search engine marketing companies skip this step is because it is so difficult, and expensive, to get people to link to your website. Arranging backlinks takes time, effort, and resources. Links do magically appear pointing to your website, and if you ask people for a link, they want something in return. There are also more technical aspects to back linking, such as trying to get relevant links instead of non relevant links to your website, and other methods. I use a combination of techniques to effectively build links to your site.

Website Marketing Maintenance

There is no such thing as “owning” a certain keyword ranking in a search engine. Rankings require maintenance and work to keep them. If a site loses backlinks or is never updated, then rankings will taper and drop off. It is primarily the expense of maintaining backlinks to your website that account for the “maintenance” fee. You website also needs to be “fresh,” which means that it requires physical textual changes or updates from time to time. A website that has updates will rank higher and for longer periods of time than a website that is never updated.

I am a full service search engine marketer

I provide all aspects of search engine marketing. This includes learning about your business, keyword research, search engine optimization, backlink building, as well as backlink maintenance and optimization maintenance.

This concludes how search engine marketing works, explained in my own words.

Please visit my homepage for more information or to get started with your internet marketing campaign.