What did you do out of curiosity? I vaguely understand how it all works and unfortunately lack the ability to afford paying someone else to do it.
I selected the keywords that matched what I want my business to represent. I removed all extra keywords that were not a direct hit, seems it's a less is more kind of thing. Built a blog, linked to it from my website and linked back to my website from it. Added some photographers and other industry related websites that I follow. Added an FB fan page (still not finished yet) but it's a placeholder. Added myself to various directories, especially the ones that link to websites. Changed all the external link tags I could control to ensure they were not something silly or generic. Like my model mayhem account.