What is Search Engine Optimization Anyway?

It seems to me that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of those buzz words that IT departments seem to use a lot and I think I should probably know more about. The site below has some great online tools to help you optimize your own websites, the main points I've included below.


http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm

What Is SEO?

• Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of increasing traffic to your Web site by improving the internal and external factors influencing ranking in search results.
• Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right (for left to right languages), looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site
• According to Bruce Clay, there are a few key Steps in SEO

Step 1 - Brainstorm Keywords

• Select keywords that you expect Web surfers to use to locate your site, submit your obvious keyword terms using our research tools to locate the top-ranked competing sites
• The most important first search engine optimization tip is to select keywords wisely
  http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
  

Step 2 - Search for your Competitor's Keywords

• try the online tool...it's pretty neat
• If you get one visitor per month for a search term, but one out of twelve spends a million dollars, keep that keyword! But if you get a million visitors and only one buys, and you lose money on that sale, then consider dropping that keyword phrase

Step 3 - Combine Keywords

• Sort the keywords and phrases in descending order of their perceived importance. (i.e., how likely it is that they will be used by visitors as search words and hence, generate traffic).
• It is also important that you add words to help clarify the use of your keywords. For instance, "capital" can have very different meanings — such as intellectual capital, state capital, capital letters, venture capital, etc. So a keyword or two that helps the index builders learn the context of your keywords will help raise your search engine rankings
• Also, consider common misspellings [sic] as additions to your keyword lists

Step 4 - Add your keywords to the content

• Keyword tuning for a search engine marketing campaign is an iterative loop; you keep doing it until you rank reasonably well on several search engines

Step 5 - Submit to Search Engines

• For search engine submission to just the top few search engines, you may use our URL ADD page with links to the add pages of the major search engines.
• Allow two days to four weeks for each search engine submission to be indexed in each major search engine. If you do not show up (as is common), then resubmit

Step 6 - Consider Community, Intent and Engagement Objects

• Once you identify opportunities to add Engagement Objects (ie. video) to your site, be sure to use SEO selected keywords just as you would in any other content. It will contribute to content structure and theme, and it will certainly aid engagement. Adding Engagement Objects is a part of the SEO process and should be done.

Step 7 - Check your Ranking

• Visit the search engine that you care about most and see if you are registered by searching for your URL.
• Once you have your SEO ranking results, you can easily identify where you need to go back and resubmit your site and fine-tune your keywords. Hopefully you will be placed at or near the top of your search results page.

Step 8 - Link Building

• we consider links vital to long-term natural search engine optimization and ranking. The objective is this: if you get a site to link to you, then you gain PageRank popularity points.
• If that site has a lot of quality sites linking to it and it links to you, you get a lot more points,