The search engine has definitely evolved since I began work as an SEO more than ten years ago - we're talking when Google was still in beta. Every year I worked in this business, I took the first few days of January to reflect on what worked and what didn't in the previous year, and set my goals from there. Because I have clients across various industries and businesses, my strategy will clearly differ from that of the in-house SEO agent working for the visibility of his company. Nonetheless, I hope I can offer some support to those of you new to the game who want to achieve high rankings and click-through rates.
In the old days, we believed all we had to do was constantly ping the major search engines and directories and stuff META tags with keywords. Indeed, the engines are wise to that now, and these days you don't even have to submit a URL to a search engine to get cached. Despite all the tricks and gray/black hat techniques SEO folks have employed over the years there remain a few constants:
1) Good, relevant content. Your site needs it, and you have to write it. What drives click-throughs and events like purchases and queries to your contact form is solid content that properly presents your mission statement. Whether you sell clothes or candy, or use your site to advertise your plumbing business, the content must relay that information to the visitor in direct manner. Relevancy and quality are the keys to helping improve your search rankings.
2) Quality links. Early on in the SEO game, I knew the link farms were worthless, as did any search specialist worth his salt. You can have a hundred or so inbound links from places like that, and it won't benefit you at all. This doesn't mean you should pursue linkage in the new year, but you need to find the quality sites that stand to give you the authority you need to stay ranked high.
3) Be accessible. At the end of the day, the most important page on your site is the one with the contact information. If the phone number is wrong and the form doesn't work, you lose sales and leads. If you do one thing this year to improve your web presence, make sure people are able to contact you easily when they wish.
Be alert of trend as you work on your SEO strategies, but don't sacrifice good content for cheap tricks