The following is an excerpt from my recent column about search engine marketing at Search Engine Land.

All I really need to know about search engine marketing I learned in kindergarten. Or something like that.

The goal of search engine marketing is to get your pages to show up when target customers make relevant searches. As search engines get better at finding relevant content and preventing SEO-spam, Search Engine Marketing success comes not from tricks known to only a few, but from basic common sense.

These are the things I've learned about search engine marketing:

• Share links.
• Don't spam people.
• Keep your ad groups organized and tidy.
• Bidding for position is about branding (and ego), not lead generation.
• What you say is as important as what you pay.
• The landing page doesn't sell your product, it just sells your offer.
• Don't ask for more information than you need.
• Flush.
• Tests are hard, but important.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for click fraud, hold hands and stick together.

Everything we need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and SEO and SEM and basic manners. Pay per click and social media and Web 2.0.

Think what a better internet it would be if we all followed these rules. If everyone created quality content, shared relevant links, and regularly took some time off from online marketing. If spam wasn't a problem and everyone had a policy to put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

Read the entire article: All I Really Need To Know About Search Marketing I Learned In Kindergarten.