Yahoo! rankings depend very much on keywords in your title and description, and keywords in category name you are listed under. Select your category very wisely. The best way to find a category for you is to search on Yahoo! for your major competitors. See which category they are listed under and get listed there as well. That way you will be sure you are at a spot where your potential visitors are used to going to.

The title you get listed on Yahoo! with is usually your business name. Yahoo! Is quite strict on this, insisting on listing sites by their business name (company name) and not their site name. Remember, title is very influential when it comes to how high you will come up on Yahoo! Searches. Because traffic from Yahoo! is so heavy, we suggest that you get a DBA (doing business as) business name that has keywords in it. Example: if your primary keyword is 'wedding gowns' but your company is called Tippy Fashions, Inc., register a business name under your company name that has your keyword. If you specialize in a certain geographic region, include that as well. For example, if your business is in Miami, then register name Wedding Gowns of Miami. Then have your title tag on your web site read Wedding Gowns of Miami - and that's all, nothing more in title tag. Then, on your home page, place Wedding Gowns of Miami prominently at top of page, so that it looks as though this is what site is called. All your logos and graphics should be changed to reflect new name, Wedding Gowns of Miami - remember, this is only temporary for 7 days while Yahoo! reviews your site for inclusion. You may change everything back to normal once Yahoo! indexes you. In your About page or company info page, have Wedding Gowns of Miami as listed business name (you can add that Wedding Gowns of Miami is a Tippy Fashions, Inc., business). Yahoo! also looks at Whois database to see what company name is listed as owner of your domain. You should also edit that Whois info at NetworkSolutions.com to include your new DBA name. While we are on topic of domain names, it is a good idea to register a domain name that reflects new business name you have for Yahoo!, such as weddinggownsofmiami.com for our example here. When you submit your site to Yahoo!, in company field, place Wedding Gowns of Miami as business name. Once you are listed by Yahoo! in 7 days, you may change back your home and about pages to be how they were before. This may sound like a lot of hassle just for one listing, but it is very important to have your primary keyword in title that Yahoo! lists you under if you want to get massive traffic. And only way to do that is to have those keywords in your legal business name. Remember, have your title and new business name (DBA) start with your most important keyword - position matters very much when it comes to search rankings on Yahoo!

So what exactly are "themes" and why are they becoming so important?

To understand this we have to look at why search engines implemented this new indexing technique.

With incredible growth of web, search engines are constantly look for new and better ways to serve up relevant results while still maintaining a manageable database.

They have implemented filters to get rid of duplicate content and invisible text. They have reduced importance or stopped indexing META tags completely as well as many other tags, and still they have been falling behind.

They have begun counting click-thru's, added link popularity and link quality to their ranking algorithms and much more and still find themselves falling behind.

This has led to new concept of "themes".

Theme indexing takes into account most of what I previously mentioned, but instead of looking at each page as an individual entity, it takes "theme" of entire site into account.

An engine that incorporates "themes" into its ranking system, looks at content as well as theme of page, overall theme of site, link popularity of site, as well as what other sites are "saying" about that particular site. All these factors put together determine "theme" of site and page and thereby ranking of page in question. The narrower and more focused theme of a site, better site will rank in regards to a matching search term.

Now trust me, this is an extremely simplified description of themes but my goal here is not to go into technology behind it but it's impact on search engine optimization and positioning in general.

More and more search engines are incorporating use of themes to at least some extent into their ranking systems, and because of this, it is crucial that any webmaster who wants to continue to succeed on internet understand themes and how to use them to his or her advantage.

Now that we understand a bit about themes, question becomes how does it affect you and your web site.

Quite simply, it means that we have to reevaluate way in which we design our sites. The days of all-purpose site are quickly coming to an end.

Think about it. If you offer a wide range of different products and/or services, when a theme indexing engine visits your site, what will it determine to be overall theme of your site?

If a visiting engine can't determine a specific theme for your site you will have little or no hope of coming up well for search terms you are shooting for.