http://www.seobook.com/googles-relevancy-algorithms-change-keyword
A good overview of how SEO strategy and optimization is different for competitive keywords versus long tail keywords. When there are many matching search results for a given search query, Google places a lot of weight on core domain age & authority and on external signals of quality like link quality. If you are starting a new site and have built little to no offsite signals of quality you can expect to rank for longtail phrases first. As your site builds authority you can compete for some of the head keywords.

http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/sem-events/how-to-buy-links/
Lisa Barone live blogging from Pubcon in a Paid Links session with Rank Fishkin, John Lessnau and Aaron Wall. Todd Malicoat will moderate. Lisa metions the room is packed, paid links is usually one of the most attended sessions. Where is Matt Cutts and Michael Gray?

http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/sem-events/reputation-monitoring-management/
Another live blogging session post by Lisa Barone. Todd Friesen will moderate this one with speakers Jessica Berlin, Andy Beal and Lee Odden. Good information if you want to learn more about Reputation Management.

http://www.seobook.com/social-media-marketing-waste-time2
A rant by Aaron Wall at SEOBook regarding Social Media Marketing. If you are considering Social Media Marketing or trying to compare it to the more established Paid Search Marketing model, this is definitely contains some good thoughts for you to consider.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/is-the-googles-yoyo-effect-the-evidence-of-a-new-algo-
Speculative article of a possible Google algorithm update based on recent yo-you of rankings.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-we-help-track-flu-trends.html
I actually saw this on CNBC(??) earlier this week. While I’m not sure that Google Trends can actually predict flu outbreaks, I think they produce an interesting ‘real-world’ correlation that can potentially grab the attention of the everyday internet user. While the statistical data model might be flawed, you have to hand it to Google on doing something interesting with its’ data.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/blog-carnivals-link-building/7999/
Amy Smarty writes about Blog Carnivals. Carnivals??? Fun is usually dangerous when it comes to link building. Group Writing Projects…that sounds a little safer strategy even though I think it is the same thing. More information on this concept available at http://groupwritingprojects.com/

It is beneficial to start taking SEO into consideration even while a web site is still under construction and other types of promotion have yet to begin. Here are a few tips on how to begin applying SEO during this process…

1. As soon as possible, complete, optimize, and make available the smallest portion of the site which is useful. For example, upload just the home page and ordering page first, but include a notice that more information is under construction. This way, search engines will find and index the site earlier, but your non-SEO promotional efforts can wait until all construction has been finished. Then you can have a “grand opening” (perhaps using a press release) to show users all that your site has to offer. Keep in mind that it typically takes months after a website is first indexed in Google before it has a chance of gaining high search result positions there.

2. Work on SEO keyword targeting, META tag creation, and search engine “spider” accessibility while the site is under construction, not later. This will save time when you don’t have to rewrite or update pages for SEO in the future. Be sure to incorporate a Site Map into your design. It is also good to learn about proper internet promotional techniques during this process, so you aren’t deceived into applying any detrimental practices like posting to FFA pages or trading links with completely unrelated web sites. Don’t hurry to finish all of the pages immediately or to start promoting the site in any way possible.

3. Don’t submit the incomplete site to directories or try reciprocal linking until it has been finished. Otherwise, the operators of directories or other sites will be less likely to find your site impressive enough to link to, and your chance to be listed will probably be lost. However, it is generally acceptable to send free link submissions to major directories which take months to approve them, as long as the construction process is expected to finish in under a month. Make a list of any directories you submit to, as it can be difficult to remember, and it’s best not to submit to the same directory more than once.

Following these SEO tips will help your site attain higher rankings in search results at an earlier date, with fewer changes needed when it is no longer under construction. This will also prevent mistakes which could undermine the site’s success.

http://www.seobook.com/seo-spring-clean
Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com discusses a Spring Clean for SEO, even though it’s winter where he reviews 8 items that you should review as you do an SEO audit.

http://www.copyscape.com
One of Aaron’s 8 tips discusses Duplicate Content. I have made it regular practice to check for duplicate content on every site continuously by either searching an exact long phrase with Google directly or using the Copyscape service.

http://www.majesticseo.com/search.php
This tool was recommended by Aaron Wall in the previous blog post. It is an interesting tool to check for backlink patterns of anchor text, deep links, and unique ip addresses.  You initially only get basic information, but you receive a full report once you verify your site.

http://www.SEMRush.com
A new competitive research tool by the same guys that did SEO Digger.  It seems to compete directly against SpyFU and Compete.com.  I will check it out in more detail later this week as I don’t like the SpyFu.com interface and Compete.com is a little expensive for my tastes.

http://www.ViralConverstions.com

Micheal Gray – Graywolf has launched a new website that connects business owners with bloggers who want to do product reviews. The difference is that bloggers are not paid for links but might possibly get free products like a free book or other interesting offers. Interesting concept as it is definitely a way around ‘paid links’; will ‘bartered links’ be next on the horizon for the big G?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/seomoz/~3/445594376/whiteboard-friday-whats-pagerank-got-to-do-with-it
SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday covers Page Rank and What It Has To Do With SEO.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/onetime-or-ongoing-seo-is-it-a-yes-or-no-question
An interesting SEO Strategy post by IgniteMedia about whether One Time or Ongoing SEO Is Best? User contribution from http://www.ignite-media.com/

http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/smx-london/
Powerpoint presentation from “Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques at SMX London.

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2008/11/sizing_up_the_long_tail_of_sea.html
Dustin Woodard does a guest post at the Hitwise blog which shows that the Long Tail of Search could actually be 90+ % of natural search traffic–meaning the tail could be without much of a head or body.

If you look at the top of your browser window, above the address bar and menus, that’s where you will find the page title. It is specified to search engines by a title element, which is the TITLE tag.

The reason so much importance is placed on the page title is that it helps search engines understand what a web page is all about, thereby increasing the relevance of search results. However, recently there has been some question as to whether longer page titles rank better or not. Here are some thoughts on that topic:

Many experts wonder if there is a downside to having title tags that match a popular search query exactly. The reasoning behind this train of thought is that these types of title tags will be seen as an advertising attempt to trick the user into clicking rather than true content to help searchers.

So, this may be one reason a longer page title could rank better than one that includes only the searched term or phrase.  We have found that a 5-6 phrases followed by the company seems to work best.  Here is one example of a page title we have done:

Another thought is that the end user experience is better with a longer page title. This would be because it’s generally easier to understand a page’s content with a longer title.

If you do decide to go with a longer title, though you don’t want to make it overly long. Keep in mind that Google only displays the first 63 characters in search results so the searcher won’t see more than that.

While Yahoo and MSN show more characters it’s best to go with a title that can be displayed fully on all 3 major search engines. You also only want to use your best, or most important, keywords. Typically pages rank better when there is more than one keyword in the tag.

So, it seems as though the answer may be that medium page titles work best. You don’t want a title that seems spammy to the search engines or the end user on one hand. But, on the other hand you don’t want a title that will be cut off so that your topic isn’t clearly shown to the search engines and end users.

We see many sites that go over-board and place 100 – 125 characters in the title tag.   While not confirmed, Google is always looking for ‘signs’ of a spammy site and a long, keyword rich TITLE.   Our recommendation is to use the full 63 characters for the page TITLE without going over and place your most important keywords first.   In addition, if you are going to put your company or website name into the title, we recommend doing that at the end of the page title.

Here is a fast way to see how your rankings are working in other countries.  You simply have to add the string &gl=XX to the end of the URL in your browser. XX is the 2-letter ISO country code you need, i.e. RU for Russia, AU for Australia

http://www.google.com/search?q=internet+marketing&pws=0&hl=en&num=10&gl=au

This is a quick way to check Search Results in other countries as well as average position for Google Adwords campaigns.  Here is a list of ISO country codes from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1