As too often has happened on the Internet, the charlatans and hucksters have made it difficult for legitimate vendors to conduct business. In this case, I’m referring to search engine optimization and its practitioners. And the real victims are the Web businesses who have been turned off to the value of search engine marketing.

If you have an e-mail address and a pulse, you’ve probably receive hundreds – maybe even thousands – of e-mails over the years claiming to be able to get you “Top 10 rankings in the 200 leading search engines” for a one-time payment that falls somewhere in the price range from a grande latte to a dinner for two at your favorite restaurant.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that the top three search engines handle about 90 percent of all Web search requests (so why register with 200?), most everyone knows that nobody can guarantee top 10 positions in legitimate Web search engines. Persons tempted to pay for a registration service making that kind of claim were quickly separated from both their innocence and their money.

But just because there are no guarantees doesn’t mean you should ignore search engine optimization techniques. They can yield incredible benefits for your business – namely, delivering motivated, information-seeking customers to your Web site -- at a lower cost than almost any form of traditional or Web advertising. And all it takes is some research and planning, and a little execution know-how.

The research and planning element of search engine optimization is often short-changed or overlooked completely. Do you know how potential customers search for the products or services you offer? What terms do they use? In what combinations? It’s not enough to simply embed your brand names into your Web site for search engine spiders to find. Sometimes users search on specifications. And what about your competition’s brand names? A Web-savvy Pepsi, for instance, would embed “Coke” as well as “cola” as a searchable term.

Another frequently overlooked planning aspect is identifying sites that will link to you. The most popular search engines today, including Google (which represents as much as 75 percent of all searches) and AltaVista, use the frequency and quality of links to your site as one of the elements in their ranking system. The more quality sites that point to you, the more likely your site will get a high ranking.

So part of your planning must be to identify quality sites that will link to you. You can see all of the sites that link to you today by entering the following search string in Google: link:www.yoursite.com. You might be surprised how few sites link to you. Part of the planning, of course, is to research the sites that would benefit from linking to you. One suggestion, Google this string: link:www.yourcompetitor.com. See who links to them but doesn’t link to your site, and contact them to see if they would agree to a link.

When you’ve done your research and planning, there are also execution techniques that will ensure better search engine results. For instance, register your site not just with the individual search engines themselves, but also with the Open Directory Project (ODP, located at www.dmoz.org). There are some intricacies to doing an ODP registration effectively, but firms such as IMA that do it regularly can guide you through the process.

And there are many techniques in the building of your site that can optimize it for search engine retrieval. For instance, the proper coding of your page titles can result in a higher likelihood of your being found. Also, understanding how to use Macromedia Flash in a way that search engines can still find your Web site is crucial.

The bottom line: there are no guarantees in the world of search engine marketing. And registering effectively is not free. But that’s no excuse to ignore it. If you do, you are missing a business opportunity. Chances are your competition is not.