1) On the assumption that many small business owners are a bit too busy to keep track of how the main search engines work, let me suggest you read Aaron Wall’s Defining Search Engine Relevancy. If all you read is the “Short Version” summary at the top, you’ll have a good foundation for understanding how Google, Yahoo, MSN, and even Ask.com work.

I would add one thing to Aaron’s overview of MSN: As this site proves, you can rank in MSN with nothing more than the domain, the page [TITLE] element, and a text header to match.

2) I’ve been pounding away here on SBS about LinkRank, and how Google has turned up the dial on link patterns since BigDaddy. BigDaddy also appears to give G a much better way to target duplicate content. Many sites that have suffered in recent months have had duplicate content issues, so it’s something you’ll want to understand in case it impacts your site, too.

Start by reading Bill Slawski’s Duplicate Content Issues and Search Engines, which includes a good list of 11 possible duplicate content scenarios.

Then read Todd Malicoat’s How to Remedy Duplicate Content and Magical % Thinking for more on dupe content and some ways to avoid the problem.