Getting incoming links is a daunting task especially because they must be links from high quality web sites. Stay away from link farms or any so called SEO Specialist that claims to be able to get you hundreds of incoming links for just $299!

So what can you do to get quick and high quality links to your web site? Try Content Sharing sites and Social Bookmarking sites.

First create an article that includes keywords that you want to rank well for. This article should be informational rather than an advertorial for your business and at least 250 words. Create hyperlinks back to your web site within the content. Then create a few different versions of this same article by moving around paragraphs, sentences, changing the headlines etc. The purpose of this is to avoid duplicate content issues. Search engines won’t index content that they deem to be duplicate content.

Second, submit the articles to content sharing sites such as ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com etc. Then once you have create a login on the varous sites, posted your article and a link has been created on the content sharing site, submit the links to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg and hundred of others.

This is an extremely powerful way to create high quality incoming links to your web site and boost your rankings in organic search results. The only drawback is that it is extremely time consuming and if you are not an SEO geek you may find it to be the most excruciating task of your life….and thus conveniently never get around to doing it.

Link development via content sharing, social bookmarking etc is one of the areas we specialize in. We are SEO geeks and rather enjoy it so let us know if you need help in this or any other area of SEO.

Check out this link to get your Google Dashboard: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?service=datasummary.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT – News) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO – News) announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.

Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

So how does this affect Webmasters and Advertisers:

For more information about the Yahoo & Microsoft search deal, check out the Yahoo Transition Center.

What are your thoughts about this deal? Yahoo has been out of the search game for a while so we wonder how this will impact the industry. Should Google feel threatened? Your thoughts are welcome.

Local businesses need to look at their optimization efforts from all different angles. It’s not enough to just optimize for your brand name anymore even if you are well known local brand. In the case of Milestones, web sites such as dinehere.ca, foodvancouver.com, martiniboys.com, urbanspoon.com, all came up in results way before the Milestones web site when we searched for ‘Milestones Yaletown hours’. Milestonesrestaurant.com was #9!!!! Milestones should be number 1 for this query especially considering that we included their brand name in our query.

So how did the other sites rank so well for this query. It’s simple, they localized it. They each had a page dedicated to the Milestones Yaletown web site, these dedicated pages had ‘milestones’ and ‘yaletown’ in the url file name (i.e. dinehere.ca/vancouver/milestones-grill-and-bar-yaletown and http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/181178/restaurant/Yaletown/Milestones-Grill-and-Bar-Vancouver). And in the case of foodvancouver.com, Milestones Yaletown was set up in Google Maps (Show map of 1109 Hamilton St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1A1). So all these other web sites have keyword rich pages dedicated to the Yaletown establishment and a Google Maps listing to boot….so why doesn’t the Milestones web site. This is what came up #9 in organic search results:

Milestones Restaurants – Vancouver
Hours of Operation: Weekday Opening – 11 am Weekend Opening – 9:30 am … Milestone’s Yaletown is located in the heart of Vancouver’s trendy lofts and …
www.milestonesrestaurants.com/index.php?id=353/

And thus the #9 ranking for their own brand… behind all these other local sites. Their local competitor, the Keg Yaletown did a better job with their SEO. When we query ‘the keg yaletown hours’ in Google, their local listings appears followed by the dedicated Keg Yaletown page on their own web site: www.kegsteakhouse.com/en/locations/BC/…/yaletown-keg/

If you run a local business, don’t make the same mistake as Milestones. Take every measure to ensure that you appear for your own brand no matter what the search query.

Who do you share Google Buzz with? Gmail contacts, for one, but you can also send your updates to Twitter as well. Your Gmail contacts can respond to your updates, using the @ symbol much like Twitter and now Facebook use. Your Gmail inbox will be used to push notifications to Buzz users.

Google Buzz was just launched on Feb 9, 2010 so it may take a few days before you get access. In the meantime, check out this vid to see how it works.

Do you think that Google Buzz can compete with Twitter and Facebook? Do you think that dominating yet another area of the Internet is a good idea for Google considering all the anti-trust scrutiny? I guess only time will tell. In the meantime, I will check it out once it rolls out to my Gmail account.

As part of the Cultural Olympiad, a massive light sculpture consisting of 20 10 kilowatt xenon robotic searchlights installed on either side of the entrance to False Creek in downtown Vancouver will be on display. The sculpture itself, known as the Vectorial Elevation, is controlled by us the public.

We can submit designs via a slick web site found at http://www.vectorialvancouver.net/home.html . You craft instructions (very easy to do) that position the 20 spot lights, preview the display as a 3D Google maps model complete with all of downtown Vancouver, and then submit the instructions to an Internet connected server that controls the lights. You might need to wait an hour or so for your work to occur but when it does you can watch the process on four live web cams sprinkled around English Bay.

Check out DNA11’s blog at http://www.dnaart.com/ for more info.

Yaletown is a hub for Vancouver’s best restaurants and lounges. So wear your funkiest duds at night. Or if you prefer to visit during the day, bring comfy shoes! After enjoying some live music at the LiveCity, join in on the action on the seawall. Bike, walk, jog, rollerblade, or feel free to bring your little ones in a stroller. Yaletown is crawling with young moms and their tiny tots.

Here is a quick list of Olympics 2010 web sites:

http://www.vancouver2010.com/
http://www.tourismvancouver.com/visitors/vancouver/2010_olympics/2010_olympics
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/

Or if you’re on the road, check out:

http://travelsmart2010.ca/