http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182915

I say read a book first for a couple of reasons:

1) It will lay out the basics of SEO in a nice orderly fashion… presenting all of the common terms and concepts involved in SEO.
2) 99.999% of the SEO advice you read online is misinformation, half truths, and just generally bad advice.

Having a basic understanding of the terminology and concepts will not only allow you to ask decent questions but to help recognize who knows what they are talking about and who is blowing smoke.

Once you’ve read a book or two on SEO, then I would move on to following the greats online avoiding SEO forums like the plague for now. I would check out some of the following:

Danny Sullivan – http://www.searchengineland.com
Aaron Wall – http://www.seobook.com
Rand Fishkin – http://www.seomoz.com/blog

The only forum I’d suggest possibly visiting the first 6 months or so of learning is webmasterworld.com. It is strictly moderated and does not allow users to post links… so the spammers and people who spout off bad advice about SEO avoid it or are quickly silenced.

Once you feel you have a good grasp on SEO then you can move on to reading blogs and forums on the topic. Just remember, you’re going to have to wade though probably 99.99% crap to find the 0.01% of useful information on most forums.

Everyone will advertise themselves as being an expert… few can deliver or know what they are talking about.

1. Add content
Add content, add content, and add content. Before you even register your domain, you should have enough ideas to build 100 pages on your site. Start brainstorming and see what you can come up with in 10 minutes. If that’s not enough to fill 50 pages, consider not building the site at all. Having lots of content is important.

2. A simple design is better
Text content should outweigh the html content. Stay away from heavy flash, java, JavaScript, etc. Don’t add to much stuff like ‘best viewed with’… Your website should be viewable with any browser. Keep it clean and professional.

3. Keep the pages small
Smaller is better. Keep it under 15k if you can. Your site should be fast loading, or people will leave. Speed is everything. Next to content, that is. Keep it under 10k or 5k if you can. Difficult, but people love fast sites. Throw away all the trash on your pages.

4. Content length
Put a new page online every day of about 200 to 500 words. Go to the overture keyword suggester to find ideas of what to write about. Spell checks your content. Search engines can do it, and so should you. If you have a blog, go for article-like posts as opposed to the personal diary kinds of posts.

5. Use keywords
Use your keywords in the following places: title, description tag, heading, url, once bold, once italic and once high on the page.

6. Link to other sites
Put 2 links to other, high ranking pages on your site. They should be relevant to the content of that page and use keywords as your link. Don’t add every link that’s requested. Check their relevance first.

7. Link to your own site
Put links from one page to other relevant pages on your own site. Again: use keywords as your link.

8. Submit your site
Submit your site to Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, Msn, Hotbot, etc. Then forget about that for 6 months. Also submit it to every single directory you can find. Do a check after 6 months and resubmit if you’re not listed.

To add your site to Google

http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

To add your site to Yahoo

http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

To add your site to MSN

http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=SUNO

9. Log and track
Most hosts provide these. Don’t use a lame graphic counter. Check where your visitors are coming from to find out what traffic methods work best for your site.

10. Write for people
People are not coming to your site for your content. They are coming for their content. Try to write as if you are writing to one specific person, such as a friend of yours who’s interested in the same topic. Don’t try to write for ‘all of your visitors’.

11. Stay ahead
If you know that something big will come out in a few months, build a page about it now. It gives search engines time to index that page so they can feed it to the growing anticipating crowd.

12. Add more content
This is so important: keep adding content. Do this for a year and your site will be a top ranking website within one year. You could’ve been there now, if you started last year. So start now, so you’ll be there next year. You’ll thank yourself (and me) later.

You can also try free classified advertising.

Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Bidvertiser- http://www.bidvertiser.com/bdv/bidvertiser/bdv_ref.dbm?Ref_Option=adv&Ref_PID=131088
Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com
Classifieds for Free http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/
Text Link Exchange http://www.txtswap.com/
Recycler.com http://www.recycler.com/

There’s an entire section devoted to traffic and SEO with many experts there. It’s free to join and ask questions.

The link below will take you there. It probably won’t be hot so you’ll have to copy and paste, but it will be worth it. Good Luck!

Designed to take you from a beginner to an advanced level SEO.

[Full disclosure: I'm a contributing writer to this book.]

There are however a few accurate and up to date online sources like this tutorial here http://www.seo-blog.com/tutorial.php