1. Keyword research

As others have mentioned the Google keyword tool is a good starting point for keyword research.

Google Webmaster Tools can also be used to see where your website is already visible in the search results. To enable this you need to upload a file that Google provide to your web server. - http://bit.ly/hPJWG4

Your Google analytics data should also become increasingly useful, as will Adwords if you are running PPC campaigns. In fact some people run Adwords PPC campaigns purely to collect data for their natural search strategy.

2. Design your website structure around these keywords

Ensure you have a page about each of the keywords you are targeting and the most important pages should be link to either form the home page or the navigation.

The navigation of the website is important as the pages you link to here will be seen by Google as the most important pages of the site.

The anchor text used for internal links is also important as Google uses it as an indicator of what the page is about.

3. Find related websites who may link to you

Open Site Explorer is a useful tool for running competitive back link analysis - http://bit.ly/ePKA3X

By looking at who is linking to competitors and related bloggers you should be able to compile a lengthy spreadsheet of online influencers you can try to build relationships with (using email, Twitter, etc).

You should also consider the type of content that other like to link to in your niche, which will help you with your content strategy.

There are lots of good seo articles and tools on seomoz.org and seobook.com. It's also worth following what Matt Cutts (Head of Google spam team) has to say www.mattcutts.com/blog

Thanks to Phil Berryman our E-commerce manager (@philberryman) for his help with this blog.