I have developed an in-depth understanding of how web pages are indexed and ranked by the major search engines and have successfully used this knowledge to generate increasing volumes of search engine traffic for many client sites.
My approach to optimising a site (or section of a site) is to start with thorough research of potential keyword phrases. The ideal is to spend sufficent time testing the potential phrases so that a good understanding of user preference is gained.
Once the 'language of the user' is known I will set about building a robust search engine optimisation strategy. This will involve best practice application of selected phrases to relevent sections of the site.
Understanding the language of the user is also an important tool in the creation of an effective information architecture for the website and so these 2 disciplines come together well at this point. Achieving synergy between search engine optimisation and usability has proven to be an extremely fruitful approach.
Incoming links as well as website popularity and trustworthiness are also becoming more and more important elements of an overall SEO approach as leading search engines such as Google seek more advanced ways to reduce search result manipulation.