Search algorithms are still in their infancy. Many people will still be able to run successful businesses doing nothing but SEO for at least a few years to come. As you learn more about the value of SEO and how it integrates into the web, you should be able to increase your income or social reach significantly. Only by pairing SEO with other marketing methods or viewing the web through a larger lens will you be able to fully appreciate the value of SEO.

If you do not know what PPC, CSS, SSI, CMS, or many of the acronyms mean, it does not make sense to try to learn all of them in one day. It took me a couple of years to learn what I have written in this e-book. With that said, in many areas it is sufficient to understand how or why something works, without knowing all the deepest details.

There are many other algorithms and ideas driving search, but at the end of the day, the end goal of all the algorithms is to favor useful content that people care about so the results are relevant, which, in turn, allows the engines to make more money serving ads.

Content has many meanings though, and there are different ways to make content useful to different people. This is not a rule-filled, exact guide for what you should do to promote your site. Think of it more as a guide to a way of thinking of creative marketing ideas. Some of the ideas in this e-book are here to spark your creativity and to help you think of ways to gain strong advantages over your competition.

Any Internet marketing method that is only formula-based misses the Social Aspects of the web and, therefore, can fall into any one of the following pitfalls:

Leaving footprints that are easy to detect and discount (and thus has a high risk to reward ratio, and/or may be a complete waste of time).

Leaving footprints that are easy for competitors to duplicate (and thus builds no competitive advantage).

Ignoring your strengths and weaknesses, thereby wasting your time with being focused on a formula, instead of taking advantage of your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses.

Being beaten in the search results when an open-minded, creative competitor leverages the social aspects of the web.