Many SEO newbies, or new businesses starting out online, come to SEO blogs such as this looking for some quick and easy solution that will vault them to the top in the results. Unfortunately, there are very few hard and fast rules in SEO, and no step by step solutions that, if implemented, guarantees you top search engine rankings. If there were, then it would quickly become obsolete because everybody would be doing it.

Instead, SEO is more of a set of guidelines that can be implemented in a way that allows for individual site customization. Most of it is fluid based on each site’s needs for their audience. However within that there are also some basic dos and don’ts that need to be adhered to.

There are numerous things you can to manipulate your site to help it perform better in the search results. There are literally hundreds of different factors that are analyzed, many of which you, as the site owner, have direct and immediate control over.

But for as many factors there are that you can manipulate to give you better ranking performance, there are other things that when not properly addressed will do a fantastic job of preventing your site from performing as well as it could and should. While this is not a conclusive list of search engine ranking killers, these five issues can, cause serious damage to your site. Fixing these five rank-killing issues will undoubtedly clear the way for better optimization performance.

Anybody who has been online for any length of time, and has had any success with achieving good search engine placement, knows one thing: Rankings are not cast in iron. In fact they are very fluid. Sometimes you can hold onto a top spot for years, other times you’re constantly battling to stay on the first page. That’s just the nature of search engine algorithms.

While rankings can be important for generating exposure through the search engines, there is another factor that is even more important than whether you hold the number 2 or 8 spot for your keywords.

Rankings, without traffic are pointless. In fact, while rankings can be a significant factor in growing your traffic numbers, traffic itself is not reliant on rankings. You can be in the number one spot and still get less traffic than your competitor in the number three spot. And even beyond that, you can often get better traffic (higher conversion percentages) not being in that top spot.

The question then becomes, how do you maximize your rankings–regardless of position–and turn that into the kind of traffic that produces strong conversions? Let’s explore a few ways that you can generate more traffic to your site, despite any particular placement in the SERPs.