Want Great Placement In Google? Optimize Your Pages For Yahoo!
It may seem strange, but the first step to getting great placement in Google is to optimize your pages for Yahoo.
How can that be? Well, it’s pretty simple, actually. Google places such an emphasis on off-page factors in determining rankings, that it’s almost impossible to figure out what works and what doesn’t with their algorithm. Yahoo, on the other hand places a lot more emphasis on what’s on the page. So pages that rank well in Yahoo are usually fairly well optimized.
So how do you learn to optimize pages for Yahoo? It’s not all that easy, since most current books about SEO are focused on linking strategies. One source of great info based on statistical analysis is Nathan Anderson’s SEO club. There are probably other sources of up-to-date info about onpage factors, but I haven’t found any.
Of course, once you’ve dealt with the onpage factors, you need good links. The best information I’ve been able to find about building links is in Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.