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Let's look at an example of how to apply the 5 steps to balance an equation. You might have a portable appliance at home that burns propane. Propane, C3H8 reacts with oxygen, O2 to produce carbon dioxide, CO2 and water. First, write the equation with no coefficients. Sometimes you get lucky and it is already balanced! This time there are different numbers of elements on both sides so the equation is unbalanced. 
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Next, identify an element that occurs in only one compound on both sides of the equation and balance it first. This is true for both hydrogen, H and carbon, C but not for oxygen, O in this example. Let's start with carbon. There are 3 C atom in the reactants and 1 C atom in the products. Adding a coefficient of 3 to CO2 balances carbon.
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Hydrogen is the next element that appears only once on each side, so let's balance hydrogen before oxygen. Adding a coefficient of 4 to H2O balances hydrogen.
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All that is left is to balance oxygen. This is easy because oxygen occurs as a pure element on the reactant side. Adding a coefficient of 5 to O2 on the reactant side balances the equation. The atom count chart shows that the same number each element appear on both sides of the equation.
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We are now done because the coefficients on both sides of the reaction are reduced to the smallest possible whole numbers. The coefficients are: 1:5:3:4. These whole numbers cannot be reduced, so the equation has been correctly balanced.
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