1. Choosing the right keywords:-
There are a number of useful tools available that can tell you what search terms are being searched form, including Keyword Discovery and Google's Traffic Estimator. There is little point in guessing what people may search for and you don't want to appear for what you think people will search for without knowing that others are using those same phrases. For example, if you are an SEO company how do you know which search term is the most used? It could be any "seo company", "seo services", "seo companies", "online marketing company", "internet marketing", etc. Knowing which keywords are the most used is absolutely critical.

2. Competition Analysis:-
Using your keyword analysis the next step is to check the level of competition for each of the phrases. Here you need to know the number of competing pages which is shown at the top of the results page on Google. Generally the higher the number of results for a search term, the more difficult it will be to appear towards the top of the listings. Then you can use a back links analyzer to see how many inbound links each of the top 10 search results have to their site. This will give you an idea about how many links you will need to build in order to obtain a top 10 placement for that search phrase.
Here you need to be realistic about your goals. For example, it may be that "seo services" will require about 1000 links in order to obtain a first page listing on Google, whilst "lancashire seo services" may only require about 150 links.

3. Site Optimisation:-
Having determined the most used keywords and analyzed the competition levels you should now have a prioritized shortlist of search terms under which you would like to position your website. Now we need to build these phrases into your site content. These terms need to appear in your page title, description, keywords, around three times within the descriptive text on the page and should also be within your site's link anchor text.

4. Link Building:-
Once you have optimized your site it is time to begin the link building work. Directories such as dmoz.org, splut.com and hotfroguk.co.uk are ideal for this type of work. If you have your own links page it is recommended to establish some reciprocal links with related businesses. For example, a bed & breakfast provider could exchange links with local attractions, restaurants and activity providers. Link building does not improve your site's placement overnight, but it is an ideal short-medium term strategy for ensuring a high placement on Google.