Need An SEO Primer? Try the "Periodic Table"

Those who have been in the SEO business or operating as web site owners who have been refining their own site to improve natural search engine rankings will be aware of the air of mystery that can hang over SEO as a practice.  Search engines do their utmost to perpetuate this, probably inadvertently, by their annoying practice of not telling anyone how their search algorithms work.
Well, online news and research publication Search Engine Land have come up with a novel way to approach teaching newbies about SEO, in order to dispel that mystery.
They have shamelessly stolen the framework of the famous Periodic Table of Elements, and repopulated it as the "Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors".  Under four headings, it aims to highlight the most important SEO "elements" that site owners should focus on to improve search rankings.
"On The Page" elements cover those bits of a site that owners can affect directly, such as the content and the HTML, whilst "Off The Page" elements are those that are only indirectly influenced, such as reputation.  "Violations" are those practises not to engage in, like buying links, and there is also a place for "Blocking" -  the impact of users blocking your site and what you can do about it.  
Of course, any seasoned SEO professional will know all this.  However, if you have any new employees who are wet about the ears when it comes to SEO web design, print this out and put it above their desk; they will thank you for it over time.