So how do websites rank in Google?

Nothing's really changed that much, or at least from the sites I look after. There's a lot more churn these days, after each monthly google update, the keywords seem to get juggled around a bit, then settle back down again.

The key thing is patience and doing things properly. Shortcuts and gaming will get you hammered.

I updated this SEO education post to reflect some post panda and penguin stuff, but no doubt any SEO gurus will add their tuppence worth.

Google has its own algorithm of ranking the websites. More weightage is given to the content of the website, crawling speed and the authoritativeness of the backlinks for the website.

It's a tough one to answer briefly because there are hundreds of signals in the Google algorithm that will effect your rankings. First and foremost you want to make sure that your on-site SEO is taken care of, try to concentrate on a maximum of 2/3 keyword phrases per page rather than trying to rank for everything with your homepage. Make sure your Title Tags, Heading Tags and page content are well optimised for keywords, but don't overdo it, keep them readable.

Off-Page, get some good quality backlinks pointing to your site, keep the anchor text varied and try not to go for the "quick fix" of buying thousands of directory links or forum profiles. I recommend a regular schedule of guest posting on blogs within your niche as a good way to build links but also to build traffic to your site and strengthen your brand.

As mentioned by someone else, not a lot has changed, you just need to be a bit more careful with what you are doing to avoid penalties.

Do you still advocate traditional (but non spammy) link building, ie guest blogs, articles etc as opposed to leaving it to content and natural link building.

It's interesting as there is so much confusion and scaremongering all over the t'internet, that it's good to get a variety of opinions

Nothing wrong with Guest blogging in my opinion, it is a natural way to build links (obviously keep your anchor text varied). Ive seen a lot of good results with guest blogging, not just in SERP movement but in referral traffic. As far as article marketing goes I still use the big sites like Ezine but refrain from blasting hundreds out, unless you can filter them through a 3rd party.

AdWords will do it for you

Low competition keywords are a good idea, but your article mustn't be orientated around that keyword. (IMHO). When you write, the keyword needs to be able to fit into that article and not the other way around, and the content needs to be the same as the keyword. When you write about a product for beeswax, you can't write about changing a tyre, unless you used beeswax to do it. So in that sense the content needs to mold itself around the keyword. but it must be natural, outstanding content that appeals to a visitor enough so that they share it with people. The more they share, the higher your page ranks, no extra link building, no heavy on page (or off page) seo needed. Just Viral.

I think the freshest advise would be to aim the content and design of your website at the customer not google. personally i think google have really messed up the search results as of late but i can see what they are trying to do. They just need to make many more tweaks.

1: Write your content for your target audience.

2: Quality over quantity.

3: Good design, little or no flash.

4: Natural link building (work).

5: Good quality content I:E press releases, articles etc.

6: Get social I:E facebook, twitter, linkedin etc.

7: This is something i think has always worked for me and that's just working hard on my sites, improving them as much ass poss.

I hope this helps a little.

The above answers are quite helpful and actually true. Think of it this way, if you focus on your "BRAND" and adhere to the norms in on-page optimization combined with the right methods of distribution, you can never go wrong.