SEO/SEM Newb...ish. Have any tips/thoughts?

Just gonna introduce myself here and what iv'e done.

Names ron. I've been doing this SEM/SEO thing for about 7mths. I come from a graphic design background. My friend said your good at cpus...you could do this. So id decided to give it a whirl.

So I try to keep our conversions around $25-30. My budget was around 60k per mth. It's a little lower now. (boss doesnt need as many leads as before) My best day for google was 77 conversions at like $21.00 a piece.

I recently as in yesterday got our rankings up 11 spots! We were 15th now we're 4th in google for our particular keyword we like. Alot of Optimizing and reading suggestions on these type of boards. Felt it was time to join and get to know other SEM/SEO. So I could get more immersed in the field.

Just want some opinions, criticism, thoughts etc. Good and the bad

Also Not sure where to add my links for your thoughts? In my profile I guess?

Hi Ron,

Welcome to SeoChat.

60k per month! Nice budget... have you been spending it all on ppc ads? With a knowledge of SEO and a small %age of that budget you could improve/market/promote your site, achieve #1 rankings for that "particular keyword you like" and start to compete for some other "high value KW's" and a ton of "longtail" kw's (see hittail.com).

Add your website to your profile if you want direct advice, take some time reading around these forums (not just the Google Optimisation one, there's a lot of good advice elsewhere here), ask questions when necessary and - once you have enough posts - you could ask for a site review (if desired).

Without seeing your site or knowing your market any further advice is hard to imagine, but your long term goal should probably be to improve the functionality/useability/content of your website, trying to build a knowlege base/resource as opposed to a simple online shop/business portal will give others a reason to link to you, which - with everything else in place - is the foundation/basis of not only high quality/volume traffic from the links but also high rankings from the SE's for terms which will lead to good conversions.

Hi thanks for the response. My budget is spent on all PPC. Google obviously gets the most, yahoo, msn. We tried "ask" and it was terrible. Conversions were so expensive. Interface was garbage. I definitely would like to optimise for other words as well. I'd love to be number 1 for the word we like and at least top 10 for 2-3 more words. I use IBP 10. What do you guys think of that? I was recommended that once i started. And I like it cause it recommends some good links, and Tells me what my % is for a good ranking. In this case 95% is about my glass ceiling. (93% for google) Do you think is a good practice using this software? I just don't want to get banned so i'm trying not to do anything shady (link exchange software and the like)

I checked out hittail...unsure of it. I'm glad i joined here I don't know some of these terms "longtail" Is that like our phrases? that some people might write out in a search engine?

I have some decent links. I would like to get more links and change our links page a little..but don't want our ranking to drop.

If someone wants to check my site that admin that would awesome!!

thanks,
ron