I would recommend this for any business owner currently with or considering a web presence. (I know I would have done things differently had I read this book before getting our site designed.) Also, marketing, sales or customer services execs. may find this handy as they look to increase sales / revenue and/or the ability for their customers to find their product or service easily on the web.
Rating: 5 / 5

I’ve read Bruce Clay’s newsletter and attended his training class out in Simi Valley, and truly he is the authority on SEO. I consider myself a pretty good SEO, but this book helps reinforce everything, and at 768 pages, unless you know everything about SEO, you’ll find a lot of good information in here (if you sit on any panels at SES, SMX or other SEO-based conferences, please read this before spewing what you personally think is correct).

There aren’t many books on this subject that are worth anything, or as easy to read.
Rating: 5 / 5

As you said you donot have a website, you can have a blog on blogger or somewhere else and choose that as your marketing platform.

Or you can do PPC for the affiliate program. This will involve money but if done in a calculated manner will produce results far better and sooner than other methods.

As far was “what” to optimize, there is basically two types of optimization… on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization means using elements ON the page to help your page rank. Off-page optimization is using elements OFF the page (on other pages of your site as well as on pages on other sites) to help your page rank.

Overall, it is off-page factors that carry the most weight… i.e. inbound links from other pages using your targeted keyword phrase or slight variations as the link text… preferably from pages that are relevant to the topic you’re trying to rank for and pages with high PR or link popularity. It’s estimated that off-page factors might influence 70-80% of your overall ranking while on-page factors might influence 20-30% of your overall ranking.

Here’s a quick rundown of on-page factors:

Optimizing the title element is very important since it’s generally the most important on-page ranking factor for most search engines ranking algorithms. The title should target a single keyword phrase (possibly 2-3 IF they are VERY similar… almost identical in meaning and keywords). Minimize “fluff” words in the title element as they reduce the keyword density within that HTML element and thus make the real keyword phrase(s) you want to rank for seem less important. Put the most important keyword phrase first in the title element if you have multiple keyword phrases in the title. Avoid putting your site name in the title as it only hurts your page’s ability to rank.

The h1 element is generally the 2nd most important on-page ranking factor. It should reinforce the keyword phrase(s) targeted in the title. Since it’s less important from a ranking perspective, it’s ok to add a few fluff words to give it more pazzazz or marketing flair. But again keyword density withing the h1 element does affect rankings slightly. Every page should have a single h1.

The h2 element is generally the 3rd most important on-page ranking factor. If your content lends itself to have sub-headers, then use them… again targeting keywords from the title element.

Words that are emphasized using bold or strong/italics or em are given a little more weight than words that are not. But I avoid this as it tends to make pages look spammy.

Using keywords that your title is targeting in the page name is also useful. It’s a very minor ranking factor but MOST ranking factors are minor. It’s rarely any single thing that you do that makes a page rank well. It’s the sum of lots of small things that you do that when taken as a whole leads to good rankings.

Optimizing the meta keywords element is virtually worthless. Google and most search engines ignore it in their ranking algorithm because it has been sooooooooooo abused by blackhats and spammers over the last decade. Yahoo! is still using it to rank pages as Danny Sullivan (a renowned SEO) proved just days after a Yahoo! exec announced at SMX that Yahoo! did NOT use it. I include a meta keywords element in all of my pages just for completeness (not for rankings). I use 5-10 keyword phrases and ONLY words/phrases that appear on the page.

The meta description is also ignored by Google and most search engines for the same reason… it is not displayed on the page so it has been abused by spammers and blackhat SEOs. BUT optimizing the meta description element is VERY important since having a good meta description with a call to action can greatly improve click-thru-rate when your page appears in the SERPs and the meta description is shown as the snippet of text for your organic listing. At Google they only show your meta description if all keywords in the user’s search phrase appear in the meta description. So I recommend including all keywords from your title in the meta description since the keyword phrases in the title “should” be the pages most often used to find your page if it is well optimized. This will maximize how often it is shown as the Google snippet.

As far as off-page factors (which are the absolute MOST important ranking factors at almost all engines):

The link text used in hyperlinks pointing to your page give the search engines STRONG clues as to what your page is about. Using “Click here” as link text for a hyperlink is worthless… it only helps you rank for the keyword phrase “click here”. Be very cognizant of how you link to your pages both on your site on from other sites where you might drop a link.

Inbound links from relevant and/or high PR pages on external sites with your targeted keyword phrase (from your page’s title) or slight variations are the MOST important thing you can do to help your page rank for its