Step 1: Privacy settings during development
Step 2: Permalink Settings – Search engine friendly URLs
Step 3: Rename the Uncategorized category
Step 4: Customized page titles & meta tags with the All in One SEO Pack plugin
Step 5: Reduce 404 errors with the Category Pagination Fix plugin
Step 6: Remove unnecessary links to images with the Remove Link URL plugin
Step 7: Autogenerated HTML & XML Sitemaps
Step 8: Google Analytics for WordPress
Step 9: Responsive theme
Step 10: Review & optimize your theme code
Step 11: Optimizing your .htaccess file
Step 12: Optimizing your robots.txt file

SEO Friendly WordPress in 12 Steps – Search Engine Watch #SEW.