The first steps to optimizing Magento for search engines (making Magento SEO friendly) is to plan out your template use and your overall site design. The entire site must be search friendly, not just a list of specific aspects of Magento’s configuration. Sometimes the template has more to do with SEO success than any other factor.
If search engines do a perfect job, they read, understand, and index your entire site. When they do that, what they find is what is presented by your template. Why not prepare for the days when search engines are close to perfect? That is why Magento SEO starts with the template selection.