India has expressed interest in balloon internet: Google

India has expressed interest in Google's 'Project Loon', a network of balloons that enable connectivity in remote areas. An official of Google said that India is among the countries interested in the balloon project, which is expected to ensure Internet access to areas not covered by the global network.

“A number of countries, including India, have expressed interest in implementing the project," Todd Rowe, managing director of global channel sales at Google, told reporters. He said the company was working on a pilot project in New Zealand. "Depending on the results of this pilot project, we will be able to implement it in other countries," he said. He said there was no time-frame to implement 'Project Loon' in India.

Google's Project Loon is underway in New Zealand

Google recently launched Internet-enabled balloons into the stratosphere over New Zealand to provide broadband connectivity to rural areas. The helium-filled balloons floating 20 km above earth and carrying Internet signal antennas will provide connectivity by acting as a hub for users. The balloons are carried around by winds and can be steered by rising or lowering them to a particular altitude. They are being controlled by a specialised Loon Mission Control in New Zealand.

With this project, Google hopes to bridge the Internet divide across the globe, especially in countries like India, where Internet access is dismal. About two-thirds of the world's population does not have Internet access. On Google India's premier Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Partner programme, Todd said the company was planning to expand it in south India in the light of growing demand for digital advertising from SMEs. Under the programme, Google is training SME partners in developing, launching and managing digital campaigns.

"Within 10 months of its launch, our partner programme model has gained significant momentum in India. Starting in September, we have partnered with 16 medium-sized companies with over 3,000 sales people who have been trained to help SMEs gain from digital advertising," Todd said."In the next one year, we are looking to significantly increase our presence in south India by doubling our partner base and add another 3,000 sales force through these partners," he added.

IANS

Hackers leak US military personnel details following South Korean attack

Hackers say they have leaked personal details of tens of thousands of US troops to websites, South Korean news reports and online security officials said on Wednesday, a day after cyber attacks disabled access to government and news sites.

The hacking attacks on Tuesday, the anniversary of the start of the Korean War in 1950, brought down the main websites of South Korea's presidential office and some local newspapers, prompting cyber security officials to raise the alert.

The identity and motives of the attackers were not immediately clear, but the reports come as cyber security and surveillance has become a global issue, with US seeking fugitive former security contractor Edward Snowden who leaked details about its surveillance to the media.

North Korea has been blamed for previous cyber attacks on South Korean banks and government networks, although it denies responsibility and has said it has also been a victim. The unidentified hackers said they had secured and released publicly personal details of more than two million South Korean ruling party workers and 40,000 US troops, including those stationed in South Korea.

US military is the new target  (Image credit: Getty Images)

"We have seen the sites where the details were posted and clips that supposedly capture the process of hacking into web sites," an official at the South Korean online security firm NSHC said. The legitimacy of the information could not be verified, the official who requested anonymity said.

An official at the Communications Ministry said authorities were probing the nature of the attacks and declined to comment on the reports of leaked information about US troops. The U.S. military in South Korea, where 28,500 US troops are stationed, did not immediately comment.

North and South Korea remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The US troops' presence is aimed at ensuring the truce holds. News reports said personal details such as dates of birth and ranks of 40,000 US troops including members of the 25th Infantry Division and the 3rd Marine Division were leaked to unspecified websites. The websites of the presidential Blue House and the Prime Minister's office were down for more than six hours on Tuesday.

North Korea is believed to be running a large corps of computer experts aimed at hacking into the networks of governments and financial institutions and was blamed most notably for the 2011 shutdown of a South Korean commercial bank.

Last week it accused the United States of being at the forefront of rights abuse, pointing to Snowden's revelations of mass surveillance operations by the National Security Agency. On Tuesday, access to some North Korean news sites was blocked after the hacker group Anonymous vowed to direct a denial-of-service attack direct at them.

LinkedIn now shows who's been checking your updates

LinkedIn is personalising its homepage in a massive way with two new features to aid connections on its service. The features have to do with profiles you have checked out, discussions you have visited or participated in and users who’ve viewed your updates. 

Called 'Who’s Viewed Your Updates' and 'You Recently Visited', these features will aim to provide users with more personalised insights of your activities on the professional networking site. These sections can be found on the right-hand side of your Homepage, under the 'People You May Know' tool.

 

The 'Who’s Viewed Your Updates' tool is pretty self explanatory. It will show you a snapshot of all you’ve shared over the past 14 days and how it has been received. It will tell you how many views, likes and comments the post has received. The tool will not just show you engagement from your 1st degree connections but also how many 2nd and 3rd degree connections engaged with your shared posts. 

Since LinkedIn plans to push itself as a content-sharing site, giving users the ability to track feedback in real time seems like a great way to begin. The good thing about this feature is that LinkedIn plans to offer it for free and not as a premium feature. 

Users can now see highlights of profiles they’ve seen in the past with the 'You Recently Visited' feature. It will show you people you have looked up, searches you’ve made, group discussions you’ve viewed or participated in. It goes beyond just being a tool to remember profiles you’ve seen and extends itself to discussions too. LinkedIn thinks that this tool will help make easier for you to retrace your steps, re-engage in conversations and follow-up with colleagues. 

Caroline Gaffney, Product Lead at LinkedIn writes in a that the service’s goal is to create a customised experience that would make it easier for users to “begin each day armed with the knowledge and insights you need to be productive and successful.” These tools are a move in that direction for LinkedIn. Gaffney also writes that LinkedIn has been working on improving the Homepage experience for the past year and there are more features in the pipeline.

Twitter updates Windows Phone and BlackBerry apps

The folks over at Twittter sure seem busy this week. The micro-blogging service has tweaked its apps for Windows Phone as well as BlackBerry to provide them with some interesting new features.

First up, Windows Phone is fast turning into a platform Twitter is taking seriously as far as fitting it with updates is concerned. The newest update, which pushes the app to version 2.2.0.0, is available for Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8 from the 

  

The app will now allow you to see translations of foreign language tweets on your timeline, in your preferred language. This built-in translation feature will be powered by the Microsoft Translator API.

This addition comes not too long after Twitter for Windows Phone was given the visual treatmenThe update provided support for Vine as well as brand new photo filters for images. The feature finally made its way to Windows Phone and brought along eight new filters with it.

Twitter has also updated the BlackBerry version of its app; this update is also centred around image enhancement. While there are no filters, Twitter for BlackBerry brings along image tweaks like photo card support, indicators for Retweets, Favourtites and other miscellaneous indications. When you now expand a tweet on your BlackBerry devices, you will be able to view images in-line.

The app update pushes it to version 4.2 and is available for BlackBerry phones running BlackBerry OS version  0.5 all the way to BlackBerry 10. It is available for download from

Facebook bug brings shadow profiles to light; could affect non-users as well

Facebook was  saying that the service was faced with a bug that inadvertently exposed the private details of over six million users. This was the first time that news about the social network’s shadow profiles surfaced, which is basically detailed databases that the company has on each user, when information from these profiles accidentally merged with user accounts during data history record requests.

Now, the security researchers who discovered Facebook’s shadow profiles vulnerability, have compared the numbers between what they had found and what Facebook has told its users in emails, to reveal a mismatch

According to the firm, Facebook has told users that the exposure is much lesser than what researchers have found. In addition, the firm has also revealed that the social networking site is keeping a track on contact information of non-users, a fact that was ascertained when the company was forced to reveal that offsite records were also leaked when the bug was discovered.  

Facebook is on the defensive after bug revealed the presence of detailed user dossiers

From 2012 onwards, Facebook users who may have used the Download Your Information (DYI) tool to get a copy of their data history record also got an address book full of contacts that other users never directly provided to the social network.

In an attempt to address the widespread user anger, the company sat down with and explained that when a Facebook user uploaded an address book, the social network saved a copy of all the contacts in the user’s database.

Facebook users have voiced their anger at the social networking site for collecting and storing their offsite phone numbers and email addresses, which are being secretly matched to them and now accidentally shared by the social network.

On Friday, the company released an email to placate users while talking about the security and privacy flaw. It is now been seen that the company was not completely honest with everyone, though. The real story was revealed by security researcher Michael Fury and his colleagues at Packet Storm Security.

The security company was able to compare the prior test data which was used to ascertain the leak with the reports that Facebook released to its users via email, as well as the press. The comparison revealed that there is a lot more detail in the DYI reports than earlier believed.

Facebook declined to comment when ZDNet tried to ascertain the claims of going on the defensive by saying that everything that needed to be revealed was on its.

In the post, the social network has said that it collects and links the offsite-sourced data with user profiles to create shadow profiles. This is done to help create better friend suggestions for the Facebook user.

After last week’s incident, the security company now believes that Facebook is collecting all the data it can get to create disturbingly detailed dossiers about everyone, including people who are not on the social network.

When Packet Storm sat down with Facebook, it was disquieting to find that the social network declined to answer quite a few important questions that the security company had to say. ZDNet also found that Facebook, at one point in the conversation, told Packet Storm that it was sticking to its First Amendment rights in context to this data collection policy.

What is scary is that the policy Facebook is talking about basically says that the data collected by the social network is not directly from the user, but from the user’s friends. Thus, the user has no right on the data collected, despite pertaining to him. The policy also states that the user’s friends will have more control over the data than the user himself.

Facebook began providing the DYI history feature back in October 2010 to more than 500 million Facebook users in a move that was spread over several months. A month after the feature was rolled out, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pulled the social network up for changes it had made in 2009 with regards to user privacy.

Facebook would now need to ask users for their consent before sharing their data in anyway that was different from what users had initially agreed to. Nothing was spoken about the data that could be collected about the user from a friend’s profile, which could be stored and then shadow-profiled on the pretext of giving better friend suggestions.

In 2011, Max Schrems of Vienna, Austria sent a formal request to Facebook citing European law while asking for his data. A CD was sent, which had 1,222 files on it. The detail of the data stored about him was staggering, including items that he had deleted, likes, unlikes as well as a variety of information on his friends' activities, including their whereabouts at any given time.  

Apple isn't much experienced as its competitors in the mobile industry

Apple warns: "The Company has only recently entered the mobile communications and media device markets, and many of its competitors in these markets have significantly greater experience, product breadth and distribution channels than the Company. Because some current and potential competitors have substantial resources and/or experience and a lower cost structure, they may be able to provide such products and services at little or no profit or even at a loss."

It's cute of Apple to warn about this, but even with its lack of experience, Apple has gobbled up the lion's share of the mobile industry's profits, despite having a relatively small market share.

Court lawyer in Europe blamed with Google about privacy issues

Atop lawyer at the European Court of Justice says Google and other search engines should not be responsible when personal information appears on web pages they index, a defeat for the so called "right to be forgotten" privacy principle under debate in Europe.

The court's independent Advocate General, Niilo Jaaskinen, says in a written opinion that websites, not Google, should bear responsibility for information they publish.

The Luxembourg-based court was asked to rule on the point due to a case in Spain, where the national data protection agency had received complaints from individuals who said personal information from years ago could be found.

The Spanish agency ordered Google Spain and Google to remove the information from search results. Google contested that.

The court will rule later this year.

Computer searches can threaten privacy: NY Court

ANew York federal appeals court says authorities may have gone too far in their search of an ex-convict's computer.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made the statement in a ruling Tuesday casting doubt on the case against a man serving nearly 48 years in prison in a child pornography case.

 

The court said an exploratory search of the computer's hard drive poses an "enormous" potential for privacy violations.

The court says advances in technology have made the computer hard drive similar to a residence in terms of how much private information it may contain.

The ruling came in a case before a federal judge in Albany. The judge must now reconsider whether computer evidence can be used in the case.

Government gets ISPs to block 39 pornographic sites

The Government of India is all set to make discovering and sharing pornographic content difficult online. It has decided to impose a blanket ban over websites that allow users to share such content over the Internet.

In an order dated June 13, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has directed Internet Service providers to block access to about 39 such websites, reports TOI.These websites encompass forums where explicit images are swapped and downloaded and URLs to such images shared. The list also contains image hosts and file hosts that are used to save and share images of the sort.

"It has been decided to immediately block the access to the following URLs... you are accordingly directed to immediately block the access to above URLs,” reads the directive issued by the DoT, but does not elaborate upon which law this order falls under. If you happen to stumble across any such website, you will either be shown a blank page or will see a message saying “this website has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications”. 

Watching adult porn is not been banned in India but watching or distributing child pornography is illegal. The websites that have been blocked are hosted outside India and claim to be operating under the 18 USC 2257 rule enforced by the US that requires producers to maintain records that the actors were over 18 years of age at the time of the video being shot. 

A senior DoT official told the publication that the department was merely following orders issued by the cyber security coordination committee and was unable to talk about specific reasons behind the block. 

The President of Internet Service Providers Association of India, Rajesh Chharia says that it isn’t possible for the ISP providers to pushback DoT orders. “But I feel ideally the government should ask the people who have produced objectionable content to remove it from the web if these people are in India,” he adds. “If they are outside, the websites should be blocked at the international cable landing stations. Involving 150-odd ISPs to implement an order is not the right way to do it.”

10 SEO Tips to Improve Your Search Rankings--and Your Website

SEO, when done well—with quality in mind—doesn't just help increase your search rankings; it also improves your entire website from the viewpoint of search engines as well as your visitors. And that, rather than a cheap shot at fooling search engine algorithms, should be the ultimate aim of your SEO campaign.

So here are 10 tips that won't just knock you up a few places in search results pages for a couple of months; rather, they'll help turn a visit to your website into a better experience and help your site to naturally grow in popularity.

Tip 1: Create incredible content

The most important aspect of your website—and the most important part of all your optimization efforts—is your content. You can't get around that fact in the long run, even with the best of SEO tricks. And why would you want to? You can fool the search bots for a while (and less and less with every passing year), but if your content is of low quality, nobody is going to visit your website or share with the world what you're offering.

Good content, on the other hand, will be eventually be widely read and widely shared by others, often on their own websites, creating excellent link-building opportunities for your website (see Tip No. 5).

Your site's content must be well written, informative, as unique as possible, and free of excessive keyword use intended solely to garner search spider attention. If your content is genuinely informative and written for the niche it's serving, it will already have the keywords you need.

Update your content frequently to focus on the latest information in you niche.

Tip 2: Pick a comfortable niche

Your blog or website can deal with extremely general subjects, but that will make your work a lot harder. General-interest websites have to deal with stiff competition from some very powerful and well established players.

Sticking to a niche, on the other hand, limits your audience but also limits your competition. You can write more authoritatively on your subject, and you can more easily generate a reputation for reliability among a much smaller but more loyal circle of readers.

The important thing is to research the keywords that are most searched for in your niche and use them wisely in your Web pages. You should also keep well abreast of new developments in the field.

Tip 3: Carefully research keywords

We've noted the danger of using too many keywords, but that does not mean you have to deliberately stop using them; on the contrary, keywords are still vital for SEO.

Compile a well-researched list of the most commonly searched for keywords and phrases in your niche by using tools such as ; once you've got them sorted out, scatter them strategically throughout your content, your headlines, and your sub-headers. Just make sure you don't overdo it by using them to the point that text flow seems unnatural.

Tip 4: Stick to SEO-friendly URLs

You should also optimize all of your website's pages at a basic level. Start by ensuring that every page of your website has a distinct and SEO-friendly URL that describes what the page is about in a few words. For example, if you have a page about cooking steak, instead of <www.myawesomesite.com/tips/item4?=45756>, convert your URL into something like <www.myawesomesite.com/tips/grilling-the-best-steak>. That is much more search engine friendly.

Tip 5: Use tags and Meta descriptions

You should create concisely informativeof all your Web pages with the keywords for that page appearing in the description; you'll have 150-160 characters to fill. These meta descriptions are likely not use by Google any more for ranking, but they're useful in attracting attention from human readers in the search results page, so use them anyway.

Also include for every important page of your site. These need to fit within 70 characters and should offer very quick descriptions of the individual pages they represent with at least one or two page relevant keywords within them. Make these friendly to human readers, don't just list keywords.

Tip 6: Don't forget image attributes

You likely have content-relevant images on your website or blog; those images offer an excellent SEO boosting opportunity thanks to image search features on Google and other engines. However, search spiders can't analyze images well if related text is not included—though they do consider the name of the image file (e.g., "cavalier-king-charles-puppy.jpg" is better than "sidebar-image.jpg").

Therefore, you need to create brief HTML description tags for each image you post amid your website content. These tags should consist of a quick description of what the image is of or what it relates to in your content. (Here's a quick

Tip 7: Build internal links

Internal link-building is an on-site SEO tactic that consists of creating a well-organized and thorough link structure among your own website's pages. In other words, as many pages as possible should be connected to each other in a hierarchical or web-like connections of in-page, text-based hyperlinks.

Pay particular attention to creating connections between your main pages and your homepage; do so via menu objects or by placing the links right into your on-page content.

Another helpful internal link-building feature is a which has the benefit of also helping search spiders index your site better and faster.

Tip 8: Build external links

External link building is a different animal: You need to encourage the creation of backlinks to your site from other websites; that is, links on other sites lead back to relevant content on your own website pages.

If you want to build external links successfully and without resorting to black hat tactics, you're going to have to dedicate a lot of time to posting links to social sites, finding guest post opportunities that allow you to publish links back to your website, leaving plenty of informative guest comments on other websites in your niche, and syndicating your RSS feed (if you have one).

(Try to ensure that those links are not "" Links with a nofollow attribute are ignored by search spiders as a valid backlink in the sense that your site doesn't receive "credibility points" from the search engines. You can still get visitors as a result of those links, however, because people will click on them and end up on your site.)

The process of building backlinks is slow, but it eventually pays off to create some really good SEO.

Tip 9: Enable Social Media Sharing

Enable as many social media sharing options on your website as you can. Install buttons for all the major social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and others on every important page of your website. With these buttons, your readers can spread the word about the valuable and interesting content you have to offer; eventually that content can find its way to other websites and so lead to some quality backlinks.

Tip 10: Avoid using Flash and images as text

The search spiders that index websites read only text on websites and are, for the most part, incapable of analyzing Flash or image files. So, in general, stay away from both as content mediums. Do not use Flash-based site navigation tools and stay away from creating content text that is in image form.

In the case of Flash navigation, the search bot won't be able to click through to index the pages the flash navigation links to, leaving parts of your website without indexing. In the case of image-based text, any useful information and keywords you put there will be invisible to the search engine.

Read more: @http://facebook-free-use.blogspot.in

CEO of Facebook Mark Zukerberg fights againts govermet for Privacy Of Facebook Users,,!!

I want to respond personally to the outrageous press reports about PRISM:

Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight itaggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.

When governments ask Facebook for data, we review each request carefully to make sure they always follow the correct processes and all applicable laws, and then only provide the information if is required by law. We will continue fighting aggressively to keep your information safe and secure.

We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term.

Mark zukerberg

Your Facebook Friends Are Making You Fat, Broke

Maintaining close ties with your good friends on Facebook increases your self esteem — but also your waistline.

According to a study by researchers at Columbia Business School and University of Pittsburgh, that will be published in the Journal of Consumer Research in June 2013, keeping watch of your good friends' activities on social media correlates to a higher body-mass index and higher levels of credit card debt. These close connections increase your self-esteem, thereby allowing you to let your guard down and temporarily lose self control.

"We found this in a variety of settings, ranging from healthy versus unhealthy food choices, to how long people persisted at a challenging task," Andrew T. Stephen, an assistant professor and Katz Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, and an author of this study, tells Mashable. "We also found broader evidence of this in two really important contexts where self control matters a lot: health and personal finances."

Stephen adds, "Note that we found these relationships after controlling for a number of demographic and socio-economic factors that would also affect these things."

The flip side of this problem is that Facebook shows to increase self-esteem for users who feel close to their "friends." But it doesn't take long for negative consequences to occur.

"What was really surprising to us was that in our studies these effects were found after just five minutes of browsing Facebook," he said. "It seems that people don't need to spend a lot of time to be psychologically affected."

This research was conducted through five different studies.

Stephen said this news doesn't mean you need to cut out Facebook from your life. Simply be aware of these potentially negative consequences and use your will power to adjust your actions after you visit your Facebook page.

"Being informed about these kinds of consequences, as surprising as they may be, can help us prevent ourselves from suffering them," he said.

He also says this information is something policy makers should read — not to implement any kind of oversight or regulation — but to broaden the general knowledge of how social media impacts its users.

SEO for Idiots: The 10 Basics of Blogging Search Engine Optimization

Recently Kelci asked me over on my Facebook Page about SEO for idiots. I decided to do a full post on it (isn’t she lucky?) because it is such a cool and expansive topic.
So what exactly was her question? Here it is:

Found your blog the other day and have learned MUCH more than the previous 100 blogs I had found combined. I see that you have an article about SEO secrets below but I was wondering if you can direct me to like an “SEO for idiots” type of thing… I really need to understand the basics.

So here you go Kelci. Here are the 10 basics of blogging search engine optimization.
Oh, and this isn’t really for idiots. None of my readers are idiots. And if you are learning about SEO so you can grow your blog you are a long way from being idiotic.

A crude illustration of how SEO works

Let me start by giving you a crude example of how Google SEO works.
Google has developed automatic algorithms that rank your site. They send out what are called “spiders” to “crawl” your site and check it for over 100 indicators that determine whether your site is valuable or useless. These indicators include things like backlinks, domain age, traffic, fresh content, etc.
SEO is the art of making sure those spiders are happy with that they find. It is an extremely complex field that is constantly changing but in all that chaos there are a few constants that have remained true since the beginning. I’ll talk about those here.

The 10 basics of blogging SEO

As always guys and gals, if you have any other tips please leave me a comment and add to the fun. I absolutely love reading the huge comment-essays that you all tend to write.
1. You need your own domain and hosting
The first thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting. Those blogspot and wordpress ones just don’t do well on Google’s rankings.
Why is that?
Well many people speculate that if you were really serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself. And Google only wants to point to websites that are considered serious and trustworthy.

• The best host
  The best host for new bloggers is Blue Host. They have super cheap rates and amazing 24/7 support. Oh, and you can install your blog with one click.
• The best domain name registrar
  I have used Namecheap.com for a number of years because they are cheap and the support is always fantastic. I also find their interface really easy to navigate unlike some of the more common ones.
• How to do it all
  Check out my post on building a blog and then selling it as it shows you some general steps for getting started.

The sooner you can get on to your own domain name and hosting the better. Start building up your own asset instead of some other blogging company’s.
2. Solve problems with original content
You have to remember that Google’s whole purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Everything they do is built around the premise.
And, to be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your SEO is create massively useful content that solves people’s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked in Google.
The phrase “original content” means so much more than just blog posts nowadays. You should start expanding into:

• Photography
  Get on Flickr or Photobucket and use original images on your blog.
• Videos
  Make tutorials or do video posts with your webcam. This builds links and traffic from Youtube and does well on mobile devices.
• Podcasts
  iTunes is growing fast as people get better smart phones and spend more time plugged in.
• Tools and plugins
  If you can develop an original tool and install it on your website you can be assured of top Google rankings for a long time. Google absolutely loves tools and helpful plugins that people can use in their lives.

The idea is to build a relationship with your readers by helping them out. This will mean more sharing and faster results on the SERPS (search engine rankings positions).
3. Build relevant backlinks in a natural way
If you are just getting started with SEO you might know a little about backlinks. A backlink is when another website links back to your site from their site.
Not all backlinks are created equal though. Some things to know:

• Never buy them
  I once heard about a guy who was the head SEO guy for an investment company. He bought some cheap backlinks on a domain name with millions of dollars and got the thing banned from Google. Never buy backlinks. Google is on to them.
• The source matters
  The blog that is giving you the backlinks makes a huge difference. If it is an old domain name with excellent rankings itself then the backlink counts for more. One good link from an authority domain name (.edu and .gov ones are amazing) and your rankings change more than hundreds of little ones.
• The anchor text matters
  The anchor text is the words that are used as the link. For example, just then I used “anchor text” as the anchor text. You want this to be relevant to your targeted keywords.

As mentioned, the best way to build quality backlinks is to write amazing quality content and then guest post on the best blogs in your niche.
Remember, backlinks to your OWN content is also really important. See how many links I have to my own articles in this blog post? Those count too!
4. Make sure your theme is SEO optimized
This is the topic of a whole series of posts so I’ll keep it brief.
Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.
Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content. Some of the things you can do include:

• Cleanly coded
  Make sure your theme is coded with the latest and greatest techniques so that it is easy to get around.
• Fast loading
  A fast loading site is good for user experience and thus good for Google. Make sure your theme is pulling its weight and loading quickly. You can check out its speed here. You can use cache plugins to help speed things up.
• Original
  Some people disagree but I still reckon that my original themes do better than themes that thousands of other people are using. A newly developed and original site also comes with dozens of other benefits.
• No broken bits
  Make sure you clean up any broken links and make sure your navigation all works smoothly.

The best paid themes for SEO at the moment are those made over at Studiopress. Yep, Brian Clark again.
Having a well designed theme is also important for your brand. Separating yourself from the competition is a very important thing to do.
5. Fix your permalink structure
Permalinks are how people locate your blog and its internal posts and pages. They are made up of a root and an extension.
For example, on this post we have:
ROOT: blogtyrant.com/
EXTENSION: beginnger-blogging-seo/
Now, it is very important to have a good permalink structure. You can change this in WordPress by going SETTINGS > PERMALINKS and tweaking the options. The best option to have in there, in my opinion, is just the post name. So you should select CUSTOM STRUCTURE and then add /%postname%/
However, even better than that is to research what keywords you are trying to rank for and then shorten your URL to match those keywords. Take a look at this post and have a guess what key words I was trying to rank for.
Be warned! You don’t want to change the old permalinks because then any backlinks you have will be broken. Just new ones.
6. Install a sitemap
One of the easiest things you can do is install a Google Sitemap plugin that gives a full map of all your posts, pages and archives. The most common one that people use is this one and it seems to work quite well.
This automatically generates the sitemap for you at regular intervals and then submits it to Google, Bing, etc. on your behalf. Its literally giving them a map of your site so they can index it better.
7. Comment on other blogs
For a long time my SEO strategy consisted of just commenting on other authority blogs. Not only does it get you more traffic, exposure and new relationships, it also counts as a backlink.
Now, some blogs you can leave target anchor text because they aren’t real worried about user names. But on most blogs you need to use your real name. That’s fine.
Try and use Market Samurai to see where your competitors are getting their backlinks from. You might just find a bunch of them come from comments on well ranked blog posts.
8. Build your social media profiles big time
As I mentioned in my post on SEO secrets you want to now have a big focus on social media for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.
Why?
Well because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article’s authority and relevance.
If thousands of people are tweeting about it then chances are you have written something pretty good. And the best way to get tweets is to build a loyal following and write killer content that they just love to promote for you.
Some things you need to start doing:

• Tweeting big players
  Get to know the big players in your niche by casually building a rapport with them on Twitter. Down the track you can hit them up for re-tweets.
• Add separate value
  Tweet and Facebook information and facts that don’t appear on your blog. Think of it as a separate resource for people to tap in to.
• Share others
  The more content you share from other bloggers the more likely they are to share your stuff. Give and then get later.

Neil Patel (one of my blogging heros) has just written a really cool list about how to use Twitter like a boss. That is a good place to start if you want to really amp up your social activities.
9. Use SEO plugins
There are lots of WordPress plugins out there that you can install to get some help with your SEO. One of the best ones to start with is the All in One SEO Pack which does so many of the nasty little things for you.
There are a lot of other good SEO plugins out there so I thought I would open this one up to the audience and see what everyone else is using. Please leave a comment and let me know.
10. Read, study and use SEOmoz
As far as I am concerned the absolute best resource for SEO related material in the world is over at SEOmoz.
And their tools are even more amazing.
Now, the content on their blog might be a little over your head to begin with but you will slowly start to absorb ideas about trends, tactics and best practices over time. Even if you only check in every couple of weeks and read one or two articles you will find that your SEO knowledge just grows and blossoms.

Rand does a Friday Whiteboard session which, perhaps, is the most valuable video series I have ever watched. And he is a super cool guy. 

Top 25 SEO Blogs

I thought that someone would replicate it for the SEO sphere. But no one did, so here we go again.
This list was made using pretty much the same algorithm (only small modifications were made, mainly due to the fact that SEO blogs are more popular). Once again the list should be useful because it is based on objective factors. There are many “Top SEO Blogs” lists around the web, but most of them are based on the preferences of the author.
The Top 25 SEO Blogs list, instead, ranks the blogs according to their Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. Each factor has a score from 0 to 10, and the maximum score for each blog is 40. Details about the algorithm can be found below the table.

#1	Search Engine Land	7	10	9	10	36
#2	SEOBook	6	10	10	10	36
#3	SEO Moz	5	10	10	10	35
#4	Matt Cutts	7	10	8	10	35
#5	Search Engine Watch	7	10	10	7	34
#6	Search Engine Roundtable	7	10	8	8	33
#7	Search Engine Journal	7	8	9	8	32
#8	Online Marketing Blog	6	7	7	10	30
#9	Pronet Advertising	7	7	5	10	29
#10	Marketing Pilgrim	7	8	6	8	29
#11	SEO Chat	6	10	4	6	26
#12	Search Engine Guide	7	8	4	6	25
#13	SEO Blackhat	6	8	6	5	25
#14	Stuntdubl	6	6	6	6	24
#15	Graywolf’s SEO	6	7	4	7	24
#16	SEO by the SEA	6	4	5	5	20
#17	Link Building Blog	5	5	5	4	19
#18	Jim Boykin	5	6	4	4	19
#19	SEOpedia	6	5	4	4	19
#20	DaveN	6	5	4	4	19
#21	Bruce Clay	5	7	3	3	18
#22	Blue Hat SEO	4	6	3	4	17
#23	Tropical SEO	5	5	3	4	17
#24	SEO Refugee	5	6	1	3	15
#25	Small Business SEM	5	4	3	3	15

Blogs considered: the list considers only blogs that have a high percentage of SEO-related content. Topics might range from SEO news coverage to general SEO discussion and link building.
Google Pagerank (0 to 10): the actual Pagerank was used on the algorithm.

Alexa Rank (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on the Alexa Rank (i.e., 100k and up, 80k-100k, 60k-80k, 40k-60k) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Bloglines Subscribers (0 to 10): Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., 1-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150-300) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Technorati Authority (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on Technorati’s Authority rank (i.e., 1-125, 125-250, 500-750,750-1000) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Top 25 SEO Blogs

I thought that someone would replicate it for the SEO sphere. But no one did, so here we go again.
This list was made using pretty much the same algorithm (only small modifications were made, mainly due to the fact that SEO blogs are more popular). Once again the list should be useful because it is based on objective factors. There are many “Top SEO Blogs” lists around the web, but most of them are based on the preferences of the author.
The Top 25 SEO Blogs list, instead, ranks the blogs according to their Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. Each factor has a score from 0 to 10, and the maximum score for each blog is 40. Details about the algorithm can be found below the table.

#1	Search Engine Land	7	10	9	10	36
#2	SEOBook	6	10	10	10	36
#3	SEO Moz	5	10	10	10	35
#4	Matt Cutts	7	10	8	10	35
#5	Search Engine Watch	7	10	10	7	34
#6	Search Engine Roundtable	7	10	8	8	33
#7	Search Engine Journal	7	8	9	8	32
#8	Online Marketing Blog	6	7	7	10	30
#9	Pronet Advertising	7	7	5	10	29
#10	Marketing Pilgrim	7	8	6	8	29
#11	SEO Chat	6	10	4	6	26
#12	Search Engine Guide	7	8	4	6	25
#13	SEO Blackhat	6	8	6	5	25
#14	Stuntdubl	6	6	6	6	24
#15	Graywolf’s SEO	6	7	4	7	24
#16	SEO by the SEA	6	4	5	5	20
#17	Link Building Blog	5	5	5	4	19
#18	Jim Boykin	5	6	4	4	19
#19	SEOpedia	6	5	4	4	19
#20	DaveN	6	5	4	4	19
#21	Bruce Clay	5	7	3	3	18
#22	Blue Hat SEO	4	6	3	4	17
#23	Tropical SEO	5	5	3	4	17
#24	SEO Refugee	5	6	1	3	15
#25	Small Business SEM	5	4	3	3	15

Blogs considered: the list considers only blogs that have a high percentage of SEO-related content. Topics might range from SEO news coverage to general SEO discussion and link building.
Google Pagerank (0 to 10): the actual Pagerank was used on the algorithm.

Alexa Rank (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on the Alexa Rank (i.e., 100k and up, 80k-100k, 60k-80k, 40k-60k) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Bloglines Subscribers (0 to 10): Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., 1-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150-300) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Technorati Authority (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on Technorati’s Authority rank (i.e., 1-125, 125-250, 500-750,750-1000) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).