Everyone wants to gain more exposure in search rankings.That's because organic search traffic is an established path for business growth.

The only concern is, SEO keeps fluctuating, and no-one wants to get penalize by following black hat methods. Google has been rolling out updates, from Panda to Penguin to Google EMDs (exact match domain names) and just recently, the (PBN) Private Blog Network deindexing updates.

If you're concerned about getting targeted traffic without any undesirable penalties, then this article is for you.

To rank well, your content needs to be parallel with that task. That's why I'm going back to basics with SEO to help you understand the new SEO rules; learn how to optimize your on-page and off page SEO.

This tutorial will teach you what you need to optimize and improve your Google rankings so you can generate more organic traffic to your website without getting penalized.

Here's a list of the topics I'll cover:

• Define your current search ranking
• Track the right metrics
• Ways to find converting keywords

Step #1: Define Your Current Search Ranking

To improve your site's search ranking, it's necessary to understand your current position within the Google search results.This is quite important although your website is new. There are many tools and resources that can give you this information.

Use Serps.com to visualize your site's keyword rank: If you've been targeting specific keywords, Type in your keyword and your site.

Check your website speed: Next, it's important to determine your website speed, as this is a serious Google ranking factor. If your website is slow, you've got very high chances of dropping your search engine rankings and it'll have a negative effect on sales too.

Step #2: Track the Right Metrics

Next, it's time to trace important metrics for your site to search out what alternative factors you need to improve. Here are the most important metrics to assess.

Organic traffic: It's important to understand how many visitors find your site via Google.It's an excellent way to assess its effectiveness. A chart published on Business2Community shows that 52% of Hubspot's leads in 2012 came from search engines. Hubspot's chart also shows the importance of SEO in lead conversion.

To find out what no of visitors reach your site, log into your Google Analytics account and consider the acquisition channels report.

Step #3: Ways to find converting keywords:

So you're trying to find those valuable keywords that convert at a high rate to sell your product or services through your website. Remember, those keywords are a hugely valuable for your business.Here's how.

1. Dig into your Analytics

It takes a little more time to find the keywords that are driving conversions, but it's not too difficult. Go to Traffic -> Sources -> Search -> Organic. Then click «Advanced Segments» and apply the custom segment.This will show you all the organic search queries.

2. Look for Patterns

Depending on how much information you have, you might want to set your date range for a pretty long period (say, three months or a year) Therefore you've got enough aggregated keywords that just will begin to appear for patterns.Every website and business are totally different, but here are some of the patterns that habitually emerge in our own converting keywords:

There is no point in building links to an unhealthy site.

How link building has changed: Until 2012, spammy links increased search engine rankings for thousands of people.This Moz case study, however, shows how one site used link schemes to gain inbound links.

But recent Google updates mean link schemes don't work longer. Use them and you will incur a penalty rather than earn a reward.

That's why it's essential to think about how you generate links to your site.As SEO Professionals says, links shouldn't just LOOK natural, they should BE natural.