Google has made at least two major changes to the SEO world by changing the way they decide tankings in their searches...and if you want to improve your search rankings you should know what they are:

At the end of 2010, Google turned it's attention to LOCAL SEARCHES by beefing up their Google Places feature. Go to Google and type in almost any broad business heading, say 'Attorneys' or 'florists' and you will see what they call a Places Page with a map on the right side that shows the location of seven different local businesses, and those seven businesses will be listed, usually, just down from the paid listings at the top of the page. This does not work for the term 'Real Estate', but type in terms like 'Real Estate Agents' or 'Real Estate Offices' and you'll see the Places Page with seven offices all with orange pointers in their listings that correspond to the map. The seven offices shown there usually have no idea how they got there, no idea how to stay there, and they can be replaced by someone who knows how those listings work. And it has absolutely nothing to do with keywords, backlinks or normal SEO practices. It is also possible to break into these seven listings as an individual.

These seven Local spots also receive preferential treatment in Google Mobile Searches. Why? Because Mobile is local, and Google is making huge strides in the Mobile world.

The second big change Google made came in February of this year whan they caught JC Penney using some sneaky methods of getting backlinks. Here is a link to the NY Times article explaining the whole shake-up: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=1&src=busln You can read it all (5 pages) for yourself, but the upshot is that Google is now relying far less on backlinks and giving more importance to original content.

I bring all this up because you can waste a lot of time trying to do SEO techniques that are out of date. Google always takes the lead, and the other search engines follow along, so if you want to increase your rankings, you need to know what matters to Google...and what matters to Google changes all the time.

Here is a link to the Official Google Blog if you;re interested: Official Google Blog