When you open a jigsaw puzzle box, you are confronted with a jumble of puzzle pieces, like up to a 1,000. Unless you’re a veteran jigsaw puzzler (I am not) it can seem like a Herculean task to put it all together to make a beautiful picture.

Most people start by finding all the straight edges so that the frame of the puzzle can be established. As you line up the edges, you put like colors together.

That’s the basic foundation of puzzle building. Then it gets trickier. You continue to put like colors together and you try to eyeball the similarities of the pieces. It’s slow, tedious work. There will be considerable trial and error as you try different shapes in different places.

Search engine optimization, the art of getting a website to rank as highly as possible in search results, is like a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, there are certain basic tasks that are foundational and should be done for every website.

For many websites, especially local businesses, once the basics are covered, the results can be a significant improvement in search rankings.

But sometimes there are problems. For whatever reason, the basics just aren’t getting you the rankings you want for specific keyword phrases.

A good SEO copywriter studies results and looks for patterns. Then he or she might make a change and then wait to see if that one change helps. If it doesn’t, another change might be required. And then another.

When you complete a jigsaw puzzle, you are rewarded with a beautiful picture. The patience and perseverance is well worth the effort.

The same will happen when you put in the effort for SEO. Your site or page will rank better, bringing you more traffic, more customers, and more sales. You’ll be happy you took the time.

Easy Web Tip 225: Like a jigsaw puzzle, search engine optimization often requires trial and error to discover what will work.