Hi,
I'm Esoos Bobnar, one of the contributing authors to searchenginenews.com and the Unfair Advantage Book. Just wanted to say thanks to the folks that recommended our publication, and give my two cents.
I'd very much agree with the advice that's been given in this forum. Create a quality site, and work to get links from other quality sites that are related in topic to your own. When it comes to links, quality is more important than quantity.
As mentioned, the meta description tag can be important, as it often provides the description of your site that people see in the search engines. Most other meta tags are unimportant, with exception of the META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" type of meta tag. Best to avoid this one, because it can keep search engine spiders from indexing your web pages if you're not careful.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions about SEO, but it looks like the mods here already have a pretty strong grasp of the topic.
Also, as a side note, the Unfair Advantage Book is an ebook, and it gets updated every month to keep it current.
