Search Engine Optimization is not as difficult as it seems. SEM (search engine marketing) is a different topic all together, but over the past few months I've learned a lot about SEO and its not too difficult once you get the hang of it.
You're correct that content is king. If you're looking to generate good "search love" for your website, then you have to not only create content that search engines like to digest, but content that people will enjoy reading. If they like reading it, then they're going to link to you.
If you have original content that people will like to read (Hey, I'm sorry, but no one cares about your blog about your "journey to success" if you have done nothing with your life), say like a top 10 list or how to guide or a good, funny commentary on a pop culture topic (look how successful thesuperficial.com is) , anything of interest really, then you're bound to get linked.
Linking is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization. A link from a 3rd party site is a "Stamp of approval" that suggests to a search engine that your website is a source of information on that particular topic.
There are a lot more ways to Search Engine Optimization your site, some are good and some are bad (IE were good tricks at one point but spiders are seeing through them). Some good ones are keywords in your URL (for instance if your blog pages are
www.example.com?page=12 you should change it to list the title
http://www.example.com?Page=top_ten_..._pick_up_girls), keywords in your Title tags (an often overlooked factor that is probably the most important on-site controllable factor) , and headings.
Some bad ones are link-exchange with off topic sites (
http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/b...hangeSpam.html), blog spamming, etc.
In the end though, its really all about good, original content. We've shifted to a point on the web where your time is much better spent generating original content than actively pursuing Search Engine Optimization techniques. You're better off getting one good review from a website than hitting up 50 directories for links. The user-generated internet of web 2.0 can see through the fake junk that's purposely there to make a buck (like Made for Adsense sites) and has become a place where you provide good information, people comment on it, link to it , possible digg it, etc.
Anyways, I hope that made sense. The field is really too broad to condense into a forum post, and I've got too much to do.
You can and should reference this article though:
http://www.seomoz.org/articles/searc...ng-factors.php
