Keywords in the title and internal linking are definitely things to do.

I would add a couple of brief thoughts. 1) create your post title using an exact search phrase that you want to target. i.e. ‘how to make money online’. That must be something people search on. 2) link internally quite a bit. I’m no expert, but I know wikipedia does this a lot, and they rank, so seems like a good idea.

and lastly, some of the ideas you’re pointing out in the post (carnivals, etc) are less about technical ranking and more about marketing. Personally I believe that that kind of approach is going to be what’s needed going forward; treating this as a marketing/traffic endeauvour instead of a technical thing. Then let Google figure out that your traffic is important as a result of that marketing.

Kevin – I did clarify in the previous paragraph that these rules were changing so I didn’t know if that was true anymore. Congrats on joining the Challenge and thanks a lot for leaving a comment!

I don’t think that this theory holds anymore. If you use no-follow, then the “Google juice” is lost, rather than redistributed to your other links. Also, I like that you mention the Yakezie challenge. It’s a great community, and it’s also helped me gain visibility that otherwise would have been more difficult to achieve.

It’s funny though, cuz I have never had any intention to build inbound links or whatever. I just randomly came up with the post and Yakezie after believing in the little guys like myself who would get rejected left and right from things.

I knew very little about all this sort of stuff, and things just came.

That’s the secret I think… just being genuine and writing whatever you want and building relationships.

Best, Sam