One of the things that has always made SEO so tricky is that Google doesn’t really comment much about search engine optimization techniques and they are always changing their algorithm, leaving testing as the only way to figure out what SEO techniques work.

Well, in case any of our readers missed it, Google has released an official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF).  It doesn’t release any of Google’s algorithm secrets, but it does cover Google’s best practices for title tags, meta tags, URL structure, navigation, content, anchor text, headers, images and of course, Robots.txt, making this a good way to review the basics and make sure you have that stuff down correctly.

About two weeks ago, we covered a story about the All-in-One SEO Pack and the fact that it was no longer being supported.  To the relief of thousands of WordPress users, about a week later, we found out that someone else had resurrected the plugin.   The lesson learned was obviously that too many people had come to rely heavily on a single WordPress plugin.

Thanks to a heads up from my friend Leland at Themelab, it looks like someone has attempted to put a fork into the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin, with the release of a new plugin called Platinum SEO Pack.  Here are a few of the features that you will get on top of what AiO SEO Pack included:

1. Ability to add follow or nofollow and noindex meta tags to any post or page.
2. Automatic 301 redirect for permalink changes.
3. Nofollow links to your archives, categories, and tags pages.

To read more, or to download the Platinum SEO Pack, check out the authors page.

Search engine algorithms are always changing, so even for the top experts in search engine optimization, there is a constant need for studying the newest SEO techniques in order to compete in todays online world.

WordPress has always been very search engine friendly by default, and when you add things like the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin or the SEO Sniper plugin to the mix, you have the potential for a very well optimized website without any real work.

With that said, there are a variety of SEO techniques that you can apply to your sites setup that aren’t covered with a simple plugin, and Joost de Valk has taken the time to cover WordPress SEO in great detail.

I have made it a habit to stay very current on the latest SEO techniques and I found this post extremely useful, well organized, and Joost did a great job of explaining things in a way that pretty much anyone can understand.    And hey, if you don’t like to read about SEO, you can at least click over to check out his new website design (and improved domain name).  Great work Joost!

I have added this post to our WordPress resources page.

Almost a week ago we wrote a post about how we noticed that the All-in-One SEO Pack was no longer supported by the original author, Uberdose.  This was obviously very concerning for many WordPress users as it is the most popular plugin and so many people have come to rely on it to optimize their blogs for search engines.

My original concern was that the author had not disclosed licensing information with the release of the plugin, but I noticed today that an update to this plugin was available and it appears that someone else is now supporting this plugin.  If you are wondering who is now supporting it, you can find information about the new owner over at ImBloggingThat.

Though this is exciting news for users of this plugin, I’m not familiar with the author so hopefully he is up on the latest SEO techniques and provides a similar commitment to what Uberdose did for the plugin. Ideally, this plugin really needs to be built into the standard WordPress install because it is so important and widely used, and everyone either is or should be using it if they aren’t already using a more advanced version like SEO Sniper.  Can we get this built into WordPress 2.7?  Only time will tell…

When picking out a new WordPress theme, there are a lot of factors to consider. Do you want a 2-column theme or a 3-column theme? What about AJAX comments? Maybe you want specific colors? No matter what your preference is, one of the main factors you should probably consider is how search engine friendly your theme is going to be.

There are a lot of techniques that theme designers can use when creating their theme to help optimize it for search engines, and several authors have taken the time to do so. Here are what I feel are the best search engine optimized WordPress themes:

2-Column Search Engine Optimized WordPress Themes

Slick Blue Theme (Advertising Ready, SEO Friendly)

Source | Download

Sodelicious Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Modern Blue Green Theme

Source | Download | Demo

YourBlog 2.0 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

PassionDuo Theme (3 Colors)

Green: Demo | Download, Red: Demo | Download, Blue: Demo | Download

Yakuter Tema 2.0 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

3-Column Search Engine Optimized WordPress Themes

Big Blue Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Redie 3.0 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Ambient Glo Theme

Source | Download | Demo

ProSense Theme

Source | Download (Orange, Blue, and Gray) | Demo

Cutline Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Courtney Tuttle has posted a great collection of SEO Friendly WordPress themes. It looks like these are existing WordPress themes that were modified to be more search engine friendly.

Have a search engine optimized WordPress theme you’d like to see included in this list? Feel free to comment below with a link and I’ll see about it getting added!