If you are a business owner, odds are you hammered regularly by a variety of companies all telling you that they have a magic wand they can wave to make your website rank number one on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and four hundred other search sites you’ve never heard of. Ironically, each SEO peddler seems to have the stats to back up their amazing claims. But how do you clear the air enough to make quality decisions on investing in this area? Start by getting a clear understanding of the elements used by search engines to do their job. I ran across a great video that simplifies and illustrates how search engines do their job. Take three minutes to learn how to use words that matter in your content and titles, what inbound links and the words in those links do to help you, and how search engines establish what your online reputation is.