I updated this website so I can explain some basic SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, particularly how you setup Drupal SEO. There are lots of websites that explain SEO, so I won't go into too much detail here... simply the very basics. Once I get into configuring Drupal for search engine optimization, more details will be filled in.

1. Topic - Pick something useful to write about that people will actually want to read. Since there is so much info on the web, try to figure out how you can spin your story so it's not the same old stuff. For example, there are lots of websites about SEO and about Drupal but not that many about Drupal SEO, so I have decided to pursue that topic on this site.
   
   
2. Keywords - Decide what keywords are relevant and important. This web page is about basic SEO, so relevant keywords for this page are "basic SEO", "basic search engine optimization", "SEO Top 10", etc. But, don't get carried away. Pick one or two keyword phrases that support your text. Remember to choose keywords you think people will actually type into a search engine.
   
   
3. Competition - Be careful not to choose a topic or keywords that are highly competitive. Unfortunately, I did that here since the topic of this page is very popular. To see if something is too competitive, you can use a tool like wordtracker or simply type in the phrase into google in quotes and see how many results come up. If there are millions of pages with that exact phrase, you're going to have a hard time competing unless your site is already highly ranked. My title phrase, "basic seo", comes up with about 100K search results which is better than millions, but still will have lots of tough competition. Of course if you pick keywords with virtually zero competition, no one is probably typing those phrases into the search engines.
   
   
4. Title - Choose a title for your web page that includes your most important keyword phrase. This is essential. Notice the title of this page.
   
   
5. Content - When you are writing your text, make sure to use your phrases here and there, but don't go over board. You don't want to spam or it will backfire. The exact word count of your page and the word density (e.g. phrase shows up 5 times out of 50 words = 10% keyword density) isn't crucial, but based on what I've read you can shoot for 200 to 1000 words and 2-7% keyword density and be okay.
   
   
6. Internal Links - Make sure to link to your own web page as much as possible (where it makes sense). Ideally, you'd link to it at least one time on every page on your entire site. Whenever possible, use the title of the page as the link text since that has your key phrase in it.
   
   
7. External Links - This is the hard one, but is extremely important. Get links to your web page from other websites. If you control several websites, this won't be so hard, but you can also ask friends and colleagues to help out as well. The best links are ones from pages with the same topic. Don't spam other sites with your link though. Sometimes people will post comments on other sites and put there link in there... that is spam and is usually discounted by Google or blocked by the external site using the nofollow tag.
   
   
8. Page/Browser Title - Make sure to use the title of your page, or some simpler variation that includes your key phrase, in the page/browser <title> tag. This is extremely important.
   
   
9. Meta Description - Write a short (human-readable) description that includes your keywords for the meta description tag since this will sometimes be shown in your search result. Think of this as your marketing blurb. Check out how to install/configure Drupal Meta Tags (nodewords) module.
   
   
10. Monitor & Adjust - You can use Google Analytics or other statistics software to monitor your web page and see what keywords are bringing traffic to your page. Based on that information, you can adjust your title, keywords and content however it makes sense to you.

Good luck using this Basic SEO Top 10 list on your site. Please feel free to leave comments/questions.