When employing the most basic search engine optimization techniques to your site with hopes of scoring high search rankings with Google, you can also gain extra value in the Yahoo! search engine. Learn more about the benefits of DMOZ and adding fresh content on your site.

If you are like most website owners who have applied some search engine optimization (SEO) efforts to your site, your main target has been ranking well in the Google search engine. While Google may be the dominant search engine, there is still much Internet visitor traffic to be gained by placing well in the Yahoo! search engine as well.

The question on the mind of many webmasters is whether optimizing for Google will provide benefits in the Yahoo! search results. The two search engines have differing search algorithms for calculating the search engine results pages (SERPs) for their individual searches. Because of the differences in the algorithms, there is some difference in emphasis on content and link value.

Concentrating heavily on links will certainly provide additional benefits for Google. Placing added emphasis on content of all types will pay dividends in Yahoo!. By understanding the importance of links and content to both search engines, you can successfully optimize your site for both. A balanced approach to links and to content will result in high search engine rankings in both Yahoo! and Google.

While it might seem fairly straightforward to simply add more incoming links and more on-page content, some fine tuning of your optimization efforts will pay off with both search engines. By taking a holistic approach with both Google and Yahoo optimization in mind, your site will achieve top rankings on both search results. With the added high search engine placements, your site traffic will increase, adding many more potential clients and customers to your online business.

Think in terms of both Google and Yahoo, and share in the best of both search engine worlds.

By Ryan Simpson (c) 2008
There's no shortage on advice regarding what people should do to improve a web site's position in the search engine listings. It is easy to become confused when you consume all the information that is available, because some folks agree with others while some totally disagree and offer dissimilar advice.

You should be extremely suspicious of any advice given by someone that tells you to use search engine submissions, employ traffic exchanges, or use FFA sites. That is so out of date it's not funny.

What is pertinent for excellent rankings in the search engines was highlighted not too long ago via a survey done by SEOmoz of a collection of SEO professionals.

In short, below are the 4 most important search engine optimization ranking factors, in accordance with the experts' consensus views.

Keywords that Appear in the Title

Using the correct keywords when crafting the title tag of a page is of extreme importance. It does not only promote higher rankings, it also helps with the click-through from the SE listings to the destination page. It is of lesser value to be listed high in the results without receiving that many clicks. The ultimate purpose is to gain as many targeted visitors to your site as possible.

The keywords that were used by the searcher are bolded in the results of the search. When the right keyphrase of the page title is bolded, it gives the listing a higher opportunity of being seen and receiving a click. Nevertheless, highlighted keywords are not the only thing to think about when writing the page title tag.

Lots of additional clicks can be attained from a smartly written page title tag, especially when it invites the searcher to click. It is better to attract a hundred clicks from position number five with an eye-catching title tag than fifty clicks from position number three with a badly written title tag, correct?

Anchor Text used by Inbound Links

The anchor text that is employed in the link that points to your web site from an external site counts a lot in the search engine algorithms to figure out what your site is all about. Additionally, what your site is all about defines to a large extent what keywords it will rank for in the search results.

by Terri Wells

There are a number of good SEO checklists you can use when you start to optimize your web site for the search engines. They will help you make sure you do not miss anything as you climb to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). But what do you do if you have done everything you can think of and your site does not seem to be going anywhere?

Every SEO seems to confront this frustrating situation sooner or later. Fortunately, there are forums devoted to SEO. Many heads with lots of experience, often with very different kinds of sites, can come up with things to check that one person beating his or her head against a bunch of pixels might not have considered. Developers call the practice of trying to figure out why a particular program is not working the way it should troubleshooting. This article will cover some of the things you will want to consider when troubleshooting your web sites SEO.

It was inspired by a thread in our own SEO Chat forums. The original poster mentioned that he maintained a site that had less than half of its pages listed in the main index of Google. He made some major changes to its internal linking structure to fix some mistakes he had made earlier; Google also is not listing his internal links correctly now. He is looking for some kind of checklist so he does not feel like he is just stabbing in the dark.