One of the better search engine resources I’ve found is the YouTube channel of Matt Cutts, a Google employee who shares a ton of great knowledge about the way Google ranks websites. Matt gives in depth answers to a number of user submitted questions – many of which I have personally had over the past couple of years.
In addition to this, you should also be familiar with Google’s SEO Guidelines as well. This free pdf has a ton of information about SEO, which is perfect for someone who is beginning to develop websites.
There are a lot of great SEO resources out there, but you should at least come to the table with basic knowledge which can be gotten via these two free resources.
Thanks for the info Elliot! I knew Matt Cutts had a blog but wasn’t aware he was on Youtube — this is great! Now I can do my domaining and learn SEO at the same time 🙂