Although webmasters have very different views on what is and what isnt when it comes to seo, in my humble opinon only the search engines themselves no what is. We have a full picture of what it takes to get to the top, but our information into whats most important is mixed up from webmaster to webmaster.

The truth of it is if every webmaster knew what it took to get there, we'd all be #1.....

So its always going to be trial and error, good individual guess work and seeing what works best for other related sites.

Search engines

Search engines are the bread and butter of all websites, so optimising your site is a must if you want online success, higher rankings brings more clicks. With that said being listed in search engines alone is not enough to ensure your business gets the attention it deserves.

Domain name

It's very important for you to get your own domain name with the keywords you plan on using, as free domains are useless if you are serious about your online business. Getting free domains listed in directories is near impossible and cuts out a huge chunk from your online presence.

Keywords

Keywords is an important factor of seo as search engines use these to judge a sites relevance through textual content.

If your website is image led, the best thing to do is add some text into your images, using ALT in your meta tag; for search engines to read.

Title and description

The most important meta tag to get right is the title and description because search engines use these to judge a sites relevance to a search query from a possible vistor. So your choice of keywords in your title and description is what should make you stand out from the crowd of hundreds of thousands of related websites. Although the description is as important as the title; the title is key to online success.

Link building

Inbound links to your website is crucial to your success online. As a beginner myself with 2 years in the field i thought it about time we outlined some basic information for the beginner in getting links pointing to your website.

Make sure all your pages links are not broken. Google and others see these links as a vote in your link popularity. Find a Google listed site to exchange links with so (youll get listed too; dont worry to much about page rank at this point. Exchange links with this listed site. Here are a few more to get you started, Linkexchange.com, Linkcritic.com, Freshlinks.com.

Ok so your pages links work and you have exchanged links with some listed sites. Now you need some one way links as they weight much more than the exchanged ones. This is because one way links look more natural. There are different ways of achieving this. Somebody likes your site so links to it; at this point highly unlikely. You can hunt for links using Google with keywords such as, Free links, add a link, link submission, link directory.

Submit your site to all the directories you can find, (free and paid) because you want to be listed in pr0 and pr7,8,9 and 10 if you find one:-) The higher ranking directories are most certenly paid for only, but well worth it if you pick the right one.

Bookmarks is another one way link option, register for free with sites such as del.icio.us. Have you got articles written by you that you think would of interest to others?. Another way of getting one way links is to write articles and submit them to article submission sites with rewrite rights so they can be used by other webmasters.

Try joining active forums related to your site, make sure you use the signature option with your posts; you can put your URL here. This might not get you lots of readers but it will double your chances of getting listed with search engines, Just make sure you offer these forums more than just a link to your own site, and stick to forum rules.

These are just a few things that can be done to increase your inbound links and get you listed with search engines and the best thing is; you didn't submit to them either. The reason for this is, all it takes is a link on someones listed and popular site and you get listed too. Because active sites get spidered all the time, searching for new content.

This is just the start of a long road to number 1 though; of which you may never achieve.