When looking to build an SEO program there are many elements that take place. If you want to get better ranked in the search engines you need to start off with keyword research. Depending on your site and niche there will be primary keywords and long tail keywords to try and capture.Deciding on KeywordsWhen picking the first keywords to go after it is important to see which keywords you want to start working on. Most people look to longer tailed keywords, as often times there is less competition. After they work on and rank for these then they work on keywords that have more competition. Once you have the keywords that you want to work on it is important to check out the competitors who are ahead of you. By checking out these sites you can see what type of back links they have and how often they use the keywords.Now that you have your keywords it is important to work on on page SEO. With this we are referring to title pages, meta tags and other elements on your site. I personally hire a coder to make sure that my sites are optimized for search engines. With this on page SEO you need to look at the content available on your website. It is going to be difficult to outrank sites in your niche when they have more content on the site. Looking over your content and building a schedule when you are going to update will help with the search engines.Back LinkingNow that you have your site optimized and content on your site, it’s time to look for back links. Back links becomes some of the biggest work to rank for quality keywords. You can find many different ways to build back links and you do need to diversify your links. Back links become a huge part of your SEO program.First you need to look for links from forum signatures, article marketing, blog commenting and other links. Make sure when you are looking to build links that they are all do follow. If these links are not do follow they will not help your site in the search engines.Looking at your competitor’s links through tools, like Sites Explorer on Yahoo, will let you see what links can help your site. This is a wonderful way to learn how and where to focus your attention on links.Also you will see many sites have thousands of links. Most sites do not get all of the links themselves. Now it becomes more important to look to places you can outsource your links. On the web there are plenty of people doing blog commenting, forum posting and more. Remember SEO is not an overnight adventure. When looking to build your website through the rankings look for small gains at first to make sure things are working. Once things are working then you can emphasize what has been working and in the end you can properly spend the money in your budget.