It's time once again for the SEO Chat newsletter! If you're wondering what Google is up to these days, the article we're highlighting this week from eWeek gives you a clue. Application developers can now sell Android applications on something called the Android Market using Google Checkout, naturally. Is there anything the search engine giant doesn't have a hand in there days?

Now let's talk about the articles we published for you this week. We ran fewer articles due to the holiday. On Tuesday we took a look at question and answer sites, and considered why they are so popular. They're not always successful Google Answers comes to mind but the good ones have a certain addictive quality. What are they tapping into, and how can you put that to work for you? On Wednesday we covered some of the easier changes you can make to your web site to help it show a friendlier face to the search engines. They're all basic optimization techniques, so you can also think of the article as a checklist.

Our Thread of the Week touches on a long-ranging debate. Do keywords in your domain name help you rank better on the search engine results pages? There are some who swear by them, others who swear they make no difference, and still others who try a mix of branding and keywords to hedge their bets. Which approach is best? Jump into the debate on this week's thread and add your views!

If you're hungry for more SEO-related information, don't forget to point your browser to Tutorialized. You'll find plenty of tutorials focused on the topics you want to learn. If your interests range beyond SEO, you'll appreciate the other technology-related areas we cover, which include web site design, video editing, graphics, and more. If you're already very skilled in those areas, why not submit a tutorial yourself and share your knowledge? We'd love to add it to our library!

Finally, our Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, discusses how to break into the business of search engine optimization. There are a number of ways to do it, which will give you greater or lesser degrees of success. Is there a best approach? Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out.

As always, thanks for reading.

Until next time,
SEO Chat Staff

• Jenny wants you to look deep into her eyes. Now that you are hypnotized, please send a check to Dev Shed care of James Payne.
• Bobby is back. Shares of Kodiak chewing tobacco seen rising.
• Juan Valdezburg graces up with his presence. Would also like women to know that there is no weight limit on his offer of free mustache rides.

Watch the video!

Do you have some experience with HTML and web site development, but have not really gotten your feet wet with search engine optimization? Keep reading, because you are in luck. In this article we will cover some of the more important aspects of SEO, focusing on the changes that you should find easiest to make to your web site. After you read this, you should know where to concentrate your efforts now and going forward.
HTML Tags and SEO

The <Title> tag is the most important part of the page. It is the tag that visitors see in search results, and it should contain your targeted keywords. The title tag can make your page rank or make it disappear from search results. Use this format for web page title tags:

It is okay to include only your keywords without the site name, especially if you are not branding using other Internet marketing methods.

Read Search Engine Optimization, Website Development and Search Engine Spiders

What Makes Question and Answer Sites Popular?
by Terri Wells
2009-02-17

Google shuttered its question and answer site, Google Answers, more than two years ago. Yet Yahoo Answers continues to thrive, and putting the phrase "question and answer sites" into Google yields more than a million hits. In this article, we will look at some of the features you can find on question and answer sites, consider their continued popularity, and try to discover what makes such a site successful.

Question and answer sites benefit from growing popularity. According to a March 2008 report from Hitwise, US visits to question and answer sites increased more than 100 percent for the week ending March 15, 2008, when compared to the same week in 2007. A longer view shows a greater increase; when Hitwise compared February 2008 with February 2006, they found US visits to this category of web site had increased nearly ninefold. At that time, Yahoo ruled this space, with Yahoo! Answers receiving nearly three-quarters of US visits. It was followed by newcomer WikiAnswers, Answerbag, Ask Metafilter and Askville.

The question and answer space is popular enough that Jason Calacanis just added that feature to Mahalo, his human-powered search engine. Dubbed Mahalo Answers, it looks as if it is already seeing some respectable traffic - and it is no wonder, since Search Engine Journal and several other sites have mentioned it. Additionally, it has some notable features that we will get to in a moment that encourage users to keep coming back.

Read What Makes Question and Answer Sites Popular?

Click for More
by KC Morgan
2009-02-11

You see the phrase "click for more" a lot on the Internet. Those extra clicks can be money in the bank for you if you are a site owner. But how do you get users to actually make the jump? Keep reading to find out.

It is common practice for main Web pages to display many pieces of content at once, often offering up a paragraph or two from several different stories story so traffic can pick and choose. If you like what you are seeing, a little link bids you to click for more so you can read the entire piece of content.

This is called "the jump," where Internet traffic is taken from a main content page into an internal one. They were roped in by the story, interested in what they read and decided to stick with it. This may seem like a small accomplishment, but it can actually do a great deal of good for your site. There are ways to use the jump to your advantage. Learn how to make this "keep reading" link a shining beacon they just can not resist - and get twice the page clicks as a result.

Read Click for More

Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other
tech related tutorials.

MSN Optimization
The effective seo campaign needs to optimize your website for all popular search engines.
Read the tutorial.

Confessions of an Underground Link Building Ninja
Advanced Link Building Strategies to increase your rankings.
Read the tutorial.

Learn SEO Techniques from Beginners To Professionals
Learn seo techniques to get the results that you desire.
Read the tutorial.

Social Media Optimization Basics - Part 1
The basics of using social media sites in website promotion.
Read the tutorial.

Improve Search Engine Optimization
What to do and what not do for proper search engine optimization.
Read the tutorial.

Social Media Optimization Basics - Part 2
Harvest the power of social media for website promotion.
Read the tutorial.

How can this SEO Newsletter be better?

What do you like or dislike about this issue?
Is there a topic you want to learn more about?
What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement,
so please email us. Email us.

Do keywords in your domain name make a difference to your ranking in Google? This question keeps popping up and exciting intense debate. Here's the latest iteration; be sure to stop by the thread and share your views!

Do key words matter in your domain name?

This is pretty basic stuff I know, but does it matter if there are no keywords in your domain name?

I have a cute domain name idea, but it doesn't have any keywords in it, can you tell if I should use it or not?

You guys are great, thanks.

There are hundreds of threads on this subject!

The short answer is NO - it doesn't matter.

KIDS [Keywords In DomainS] can help but you can do just as well without them (and branding can be much more powerful).

I tend to try and get domain names with my keywords in them. Just because it contributes to your SEO. But if you have a really cool and catchy domain name that doesn't contain the keywords, there is a case for going with that as it may be more people friendly. Sometimes in our bid for search engine domination we do lose sight of the people.

Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts.
Read the full thread.

SEO Writers Wanted for SEO Chat

Are you looking to write feature articles about SEO industry trends? In addition to being paid for your articles on SEO Chat you get your name in front of over 500,000 individual readers that access our site every day.
Find Out More...

How to Break into SEO as a Profession

Our SEO Chat forums welcome newcomers, so it isn't surprising that we sometimes get questions about how to break into the SEO business. One new poster noted that he'd graduated from college with a degree that covered web design, and had spent a significant amount of his spare time since then studying and practicing SEO on his own personal web sites. But he'd been having trouble getting into SEO as a career, so he wondered if anyone could offer him some advice.

Naturally, our forum members were quite generous with their advice. They noted that SEO looks like a good field for the long term, but it's important to keep learning. It's also helpful to acquire basic knowledge of a variety of related topics. These include web aesthetics, website usability, search engine optimization (of course), search engine marketing, social marketing optimization, HTML and copy writing, just to name a few.

One respected forum member emphasized the importance of having a plan not just one, but several. Experience is of course key but create yourself a good business plan, then a good marketing plan, and then an e-marketing plan. Get down to the specifics; decide the kind of clients you want, what your niche is, how you can show it, how you're going to capture these clients and so forth. He advised the original poster to think in terms of selling himself as well as his services.

Making contact with the right people and organizations is also important. Suggested contacts included local business advice centers, entrepreneurs, and our college graduate's former lecturers. Another potentially productive avenue featured local design houses and development companies not currently offering SEO services to clients; our original poster could approach the company with an offer to do SEO for their clients for a certain amount of money.

As often happens, esteemed SEO Chat member EGOL offered a productive, thought-provoking perspective. Lots of us have worked very hard on personal websites while employed at a day job - usually outside of the SEO/webmaster area, he pointed out. Get some skill optimizing and creating linkbait for your own sites, continuously building your skills and strength - plus produce income from properties that you own yourself. If you work really hard and are smart and lucky you might generate enough income to support yourself from your own projects - then you will be the boss. Good luck!