As I was optimizing SEO for a handful of new blogs I'd set up, I was reminded of the monotony of setting up search engine optimization for websites. To help others keep track of the core SEO basics that are essential for optimizing any new website, and to help beginners with their own search engine optimization efforts, I have provided this list of SEO essentials:

• Metadata: get your metadescriptions and metakeywords in place for every page
• Sitemap: that's with a capital "S" meaning it's XML generated (hint: register it with Google)
• Tag Cloud: adds obvious keywords and links to more content on your pages
• Analytics: no point in doing SEO if you're not tracking and responding to results
• Blog: search engine optimization depends highly on content; blogs are perfect for SEO content
• SEF URLs: make your URLs easy for the search engines to read, and your rankings will improve

Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, and so far we've only touched on what you can do to YOUR site to improve search engine optimization... stay tuned for more secrets to come.