How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines

Darren Rowse is the blogger behind the scenes at ProBlogger.net and author of How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines, a much longer (and more informative) post that I am summarizing here.
We speak about many of these techniques from time to time but it is good to see the list in print!
SEO is often divided into two categories: on page optimization and off page optimization.

Off Page SEO Techniques

Pretty much summed up as incoming links, the best inbound links have three main qualities to them:

1. they are from higher ranked sites than your own
2. they are relevant to the topic you are writing about
3. they link to you using relevant keywords to your page
How do you generate these links to your blog?

1. Quality Content
2. Notify Relevant Bloggers of your content
3. Directories
4. Inter-link your Blogs
5. Buy Links
6. Swap Links

On Page SEO Techniques

1. Keyword Rich Content
2. Themed sites - we’re not talking WordPress themes but subject themes here. Own a niche rather than trying to be a blog of all trades
3. Site Engine Friendly Design
4. Interlink your Site
5. Blog regularly
6. Outbound Links
7. Keyword Rich Domain Name
8. Register your Domain for a Lengthy Period
9. One topic per post
10. Write optimal length posts
11. Avoid Duplicate content
12. Ping
13. Submit your RSS to MyYahoo
14. Quantities of Content
15. Submit to Search Engines - we say do this via a sitemap for better results!

This is a high level overview of things that need to be considered when trying to increase the search engine visibility of your blog. Darren goes into much greater detail including links and examples.
If I were taking my own medicine, I would not post this duplicate content (it has been edited and trimmed down slightly), would link to other relevant posts that are of the same subject as this one and would perhaps spend more time on links!