[column]I can’t tell you how many times I hear people—mostly marketers who don’t have the acronym “SEO” in their job titles—discussing the latest shortcuts to *search engine results page* (SERP) domination. It makes me nuts.

I’ve been at this SEO thing for a while, and there are a few things about which I’m sure:

Search engines exist to direct users to the most relevant information, not to give ambitious marketers a leg-up on the competition.

To oversimplify, search engines are to users as reference librarians are to library patrons. They are there to help people find the information they need. But many marketers believe a search engine is more akin to a hotel concierge: someone who will recommend a show or restaurant because an expensive or ubiquitous advertising campaign is underway.

There are no shortcuts to SERP domination.

And perhaps SERP domination shouldn’t even be a goal. (But that’s another column.) The basics are the basics, and if you’re not executing them, your site likely will be invisible to most searchers. What are the basics?[/column]
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According to Google:
Give visitors the information they’re looking for. Provide a steady stream of high-quality content.

Make sure other sites link to yours. Quality sites linking to your site indicate that your site is an authority on a particular subject.

“Natural” links develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web. And in case you’re thinking of ways to artificially place inbound links to your site to make it appear more popular to search engines, well, let’s just say the search engines know what you’re up to and they take a very dim view of it.

Make your site easily accessible, i.e. build it with a logical link structure. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Many people believe there really is a shortcut, a trick, a way to fool the search engines and get to page-one status with a few secret techniques.

These are probably the same folks who fall for phone scams and phishing schemes: people who want something for nothing, people who want the reward without the bother of work, commitment or understanding of the process.
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No one—repeat, no one—can guarantee a specific SERP position.

In this regard, SEO is a lot like public relations, another field in which I used to work. Back then, companies wanted a guarantee that they’d be featured on the cover of Wired or Red Herring. (Wow: I just dated myself didn’t I?) There were a lot of factors that went into a “great pitch”: interview with very high-level executive, revenue projections or other numbers, happy clients willing to be interviewed. But even if our client had every one of those things and more, there still was no way to tell them they’d be featured in a specific position in a specific publication.

Because, guess what? Things change. All the time. Outside factors over which you have NO control. And in the end, it is the search engine algorithm that makes the decision on ranking, just as it is the editor who makes the decision on what great story gets ink.
The only way to consistently be ranked at or near the top of search engines is to consistently practice the basics listed above. It’s not that sexy, but it doesn’t need to be.
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