Both are wrong. Well, search engine optimization in competitive circumstances requires considerable expertise, but in non-competitive circumstances it is just the basic if applied smartly fetches the results. If the business is solely depends on marketing (of products and services) and has plans to grow in future then long-term search engine optimization strategy is a must. And that's no child's play!

Let's discuss what search engine optimization or SEO is and its relationship with web marketing.

Search engine optimization or SEO is a subset of Search Engine Marketing that improves the volume and quality of traffics to a website. It can target specialized searches like, image search, local search and industry specific searches.

Short term SEO is easy and the result can be quick as it looks for temporary search engine algorithms and web practices. But for long term the scenario is quite different. Search engine optimization in a long term basis might involve paid advertising, building quality-rich web pages and addressing the technical issues of the back-end. Moreover, it's long-term SEO is a continues. You have to optimize as long as you are in the business, as long as search engines change their criteria and as long as there is the competition. It's imperative to assume SEO as a long-term investment for your site. Here are few tips for long-term Search Engine Optimization.

Select your relevant search keywords and key phrases.

• Give individual attention to each page and allocate the search keywords and phrases to different pages. Split pages, if required.

• Work your best to make the keywords, phrases, meta, title, alt and different heads and subheads contextual. That is they should go with the existing content. If they don't match, ask your copywriter to redraft the content. The idea here is to make the page as much human as possible.

• Build and organize the internal links and link text to suit the target search keywords and their pages.

• Get external links to your website. Organize the links to suit the target search keywords and their pages.

• Organize all the on-page elements to suit each page's target search term.

• Use paid keyword analysis tools for research. Tally the search results with your business. Achieving high rankings for the keywords nobody is looking for is just wastage of your time and effort.

• Don't fill the website only with glitz – graphics, junk scripts and animations ward off the crawlers.

• Use natural, easy-to-understand language and never the abstracts. Ensure your Title tags and link anchor text all

are in sync with the visible website content.

• Sit back and watch your ranking improve! It takes a little time to rank.

• Plan a weekly schedule for your search engine optimization activities. To be in business, you need to update your website regularly. The updation includes article and blog posting, link exchanges and forums as well as the web internals.