Lately you do not meet a single business owner or marketing manager or the conversation is about just how important the internet is, just how massive, the most powerful marketing tool ever to have existed, et cetera et cetera.

And then, what is an overwhelmingly majority of people doing?

Experimenting...
"My nephew is taking care of that", "my neighbour is adding key words",...

Obviously, often with results that are worse than before. Optimizing a website is a craft.

Paying
"On top of the search engines for 49 dollar", "buy this and you are in the top 10"...

Does it need to be said? It doesn't work like that.

If even expensive software would be enough to do the trick, we would all be on top of the search engines.

SEO has become such a phenomenon that many jump on the wagon... not making you rich, but themselves.

Talking...
Yes, they are going to do something about it. "One day". "Next spring".

Obviously, the changes you apply to a website next spring, will only get known to the search engines by next autumn, will take to start some effect by next winter, and higher rankings might follow the summer after that.

Obviously... behind all those that started with optimization before that time.

Make Lemonade!

One single piece of advice? Stop fooling around. That will not get you anywhere.

If you want the internet to take you seriously, you will have to take the internet seriously.

The next time you update your website, or start with a new one, make a serious effort, try to do it as well as you can, in all domains: customer friendliness, the degree of optimization for the search engines, the content. If you do not take it as a very serious job, you will be forever turning in circles.