Well, for fun I decided to see if I could get my site ahead of self proclaimed SEO professional Travis Larson Florida. And lo and behold, using SEO principles that you can find anywhere on the Web, my site is now number 3 on Google (with customizations turned off, so this is not just a result based on my browsing history preferences), just behind Travis Larson Band who have the 1 & 2 spot and ahead of TLF, who seems to like using unnecessary CAPS.
Awesome.
The secret? Pick your keywords well (in my case, it was easy: my name). Use them naturally on your site. Make sure your site has useful content. Don't use automatic backlink generators. Write a useful meta description (this doesn't improve your SEO, but it helps people figure out if they should click your site). Only link relevant content.
That said, I should have double checked my meta description, since it has a typo. I immediately corrected it, but it take a while for the Google crawler to find my site.
Lesson learned
