Technology is always on the move and the resulting flurry of acronyms and phrases can be a little bit daunting, especially for those who don’t spend all day buried in it!

Link Baiting, a phrase worth knowing, is mentioned increasingly in SEO conversations around the Web. Essentially, link baiting is the process of creating content which compels others to create a link to it. Because the quality and quantity of inbound links has such a potent effect on search engine rankings, tactics which increase inbound links are at the forefront of SEO. Link baiting is a strategic approach that pays long run dividends.

The great thing about link baiting is that it’s a tactic built on sound principles and not an underhanded attempt at gaming the search engines. If I want to convince others to create links to AgencyByte.com I need to figure out what type of article would compel them to want to do so. If your client wants more inbound links, help them create content that others want to link to.

For more on link baiting, take a look at the following links:

The Art of Link Baiting

Wikipedia: Link Bait

Most of you know I’m a fan of the sitemaps.org project. I love that the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and now Ask) are all collaborating on supporting this standard.

Google just announced that there have been some important updates to the project. Most notable to me is the fact that they’ve added another method of notifying the search engines of your sitemap XML file’s location.

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I suspect most of you have experienced “scope creep” before. Scope creep begins at the moment when your client asks for something outside of the scope of work for which you’ve contracted (you do have a contract, right?). Naturally, they’re asking for this thing to be included at no extra cost. Actually, they’re probably not asking. They’re probably acting like it’s always been understood that this thing will be included. Duh.

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For anyone interested in knowing what factors most influence a website’s search engine rankings, this is a must read:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

The report is based on responses from leading SEO experts and ranks factors that both positively and negatively affect rankings.