Thank you all for your comments.

I can teach some of this but there are two significant component that can't be taught: background & experience (B&E). The same way that I can't be "taught" to have grown up in Seattle and have family and friends here from Kindergarden onward or have a spouse who's been a builder and developer here for the past 35 years. Instead, I was "forced" six years ago to make the career change to real estate in a place where I had very few connections. So I began to use my own B&E.  I've been a graphic designer and writer for more than three decades and created my first "business" website - ironically for Chicago Title - in 1995.

I've taught myself HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and have become reasonably good at both. The key to my god rankings is that I am "in control" of everything having to do with my websites from having an idea to uploading a page onto my servers. A few pointers: Your content needs to be relevant - relate to your keyword phrase. Each web page should  be compliant with the standards of the Worldwide Web Consortium. Most important: Optimization for search engines can't be an afterthought - it's not like "holy water" you can sprinkle on the "product." So stay away from those who promise they can do that.

More importantly, check out Active Rain for the terrific people who have a lot more B&E on SEO - Search Engine Optimization - than I do. Mary McKnight, to name one of the best.

One last thought: Search engine rankings can change overnight. Some time ago, Google changed its algorithm and most of my pages disappeared. They came back later, though. SEO is a mixture of Art and Science.