This Is What Happens When You Don't Read The Bill!

I guess someone forgot to tell the administration and those who voted for health insurance reform to actually read the bill.

The current bill signed into law yesterday does not, in fact, provide guaranteed-issue health insurance coverage from children this year, sort of.

I assume this will be fixed but we will have to wait and see.

Gap in law for children's healthcare protection

HMO health insurance plans

Health Maintenance Organizations (also widely referred to as HMOs) is a variation of health benefits distribution, which provides coverage on a fee-for-service basis. Insurance companies that provide HMO coverage plans each have an agreement with certain medical facilities and professionals in order to offer reduced fees to those, who purchase such plans.

What HMO plans are all about?

HMO plans are based around primary care physicians (PCPs) that a person buying such a plan has to choose from the network of medical providers the company works with. The PCP is the person who will manage and coordinate all the actions and services provided to the customer, as well as offer consulting and basic care measures such as check ups and exams. Preventive medical services are usually free of copayments within HMO plans.

In case the health problem of a person exceeds the professional field of knowledge of the PCP, the doctor refers this patient to another physician specialized in that very domain. The said specialist will further investigate the problem and use his expertise to resolve it, but only after he or she receives the referral from the PCP. Otherwise, you won't be able to receive any medical attention with the exception of situations of critical emergency when the risk of complications is very high.

The coverage you receive through an HMO plan is provided only within the limits of the medical network specified by your provider. In case the member of an HMO plan chooses to receive any medical services in a facility that doesn't make part of the network, there won't be any coverage and the person will cover all the expenses in full out of own pocket. Besides, HMO plans will allow you to receive medical care from an additional specialist only when you have the corresponding referral provided by your PCP. Otherwise, this is regarded as using out of network services and your expenses won't be covered at all even if it's the same medical facility where your PCP is located.

Why would you want to choose an HMO health insurance plan?

HMOs represent the most affordable and cheap health insurance amongst managed care options. If comparing the rates of POS or PPO, HMOs offer lower premiums and fewer copayments. This is why many employees choose HMOs as the type of group insurance plans for their workers. This is especially useful for those, who rarely visit a doctor and don't need an extensive medical care with their plan or don't have pre-existing conditions that they want to cover. Employers find these plans useful because they can cut their costs and provide additional benefits to their workers rather than paying only for health insurance.

If you are worried by the constant trend of medical costs and insurance rates rising every year, it's highly recommended to see if an HMO plan meets your insurance requirements. Get health insurance quotes from multiple providers and you will definitely find a good plan for a reasonable and competitive price. However, if you have more specific insurance needs and can spend additional money on extensive coverage, it's better that you investigate other plan options outside HMOs.

Preferred Provider Organization health insurance possibilities

In case you are looking for a comprehensive type of health coverage with much room for flexibility that still has a reasonable price-tag, a PPO insurance plan may be just the thing you need to cover your health needs.

Preferred Provider Organizations represent a network of medical workers, facilities and other professionals that are contracted by the insurance company in order to get more competitive fees for their customers. So those who are getting their medical services within the specified network will be charged with lower rates than if looking for them outside. However, you can still receive medical coverage outside the network too, only that your rates will be higher compared to what you get within the network.

PPOs can be regarded as a mix of traditional indemnity health plans and later-developed managed care options. In what concerns the network organization of medical services, PPOs are quite similar to HMO insurance plans. However, when you get a PPO plan, you aren't required to choose a primary care provider (PCP). It's the main difference between these two quite similar health insurance plan types. And since there aren't any PCPs in PPO plans, you aren't required to provide a referral when addressing any given specialist within the network. And when you receive your medical care in a facility or with a specialist outside the specified network your copayments will be considerably higher, but you still will receive partial coverage.

The advantages of PPO plans:

• PPO plans help keeping out of pocket costs within certain annual limits.


• PPO plans let you consult with any medical service provider even if he or she doesn't make part of your network.


• PPO plans offer substantial money saving potential when receiving healthcare services within the specified network of doctors and facilities.

The disadvantages of PPO plans:

• PPO plans require you to pay the deductible before receiving any coverage.


• PPO plans make services you get outside the specified network a lot more expensive.


• PPO plans have higher copayment rates if compared to other managed plan types.

Flexibility has its price

As my may guess, when a plan provides more flexibility and options it will usually cost more than a cheap health insurance plan with greater restrictions. That's why PPOs are generally more expensive than HMOs.

Even in case you choose a lower amount of coverage with your PPO plan, there are additional fees and payments that will make your plan more expensive. So don't base your estimations on the amount of coverage alone.

For instance, besides the usual premiums you have to pay every month, there are also additional coinsurance fees, except for the cases when you use a preventive healthcare service. There is also a deductible to be paid before you can receive any benefits from your PPO plan.

How to get a good plan?

Sometimes it may be quite hard to get a good PPO plan that would provide increased flexibility for a reasonable price. If you feel that a PPO plan is just the thing you need to cover your medical costs, you first would want to get health insurance quotes from numerous providers or talk to your insurance agent about the options you have. Shopping around doesn't take much time but as a result you can expect substantial savings if you manage to select the right provider.

What does form the auto insurance rates?

Most of insurance buyers often forget that they are insuring a certain thing and it directly influences the final price of the policy. When speaking about auto insurance, the car you drive is the primary factor that affects your insurance costs and at certain moments the insurance company point of view of the car can be quite surprising to usual drivers. Insurance companies have internal charts and ratings, assessing how much it will cost you to insure any given car make or model. And the primary elements that set the car in this rating are the risk factor and the theft factor of this particular make and model. The risk factor relates to how the car will perform in an accident and how likely it is to end up in one, while the theft factor, eventually, deals with the likelihood of the vehicle to be stolen.

When a new car comes out, it is placed at a certain place within the rating as compared to other similar models and the insurance rates are set accordingly. And as experience with this particular model accumulates in the company's records, the model can be moved in either direction within the rating, making it cheaper or more expensive to insure. Of course, other things like your driving record and credit score also influence the cost of insuring your vehicle, but the car is actually the most important and crucial factor you will have to deal with.

In general, it will be more costly for you to insure sports cars, luxury cars and SUVs. Some companies rate SUVs differently because of their increased safety for the people inside, while others take in regard the fact that these vehicles are likely to cause more collision damage than others. Sports cars are much more likely to end up in a serious or even tragic accident due to their power and speed that is so tempting to be pushed to the limits. And luxury cars are usually the target of auto theft due to their price, and are more expensive to repair because of exclusive parts and costly service.

Car insurance experts state that the most attractive and non-expensive class of vehicles to insure are mid-class and middle sized cars. It is important that the car has good crash-test ratings and additional safety features installed, being safe in case of an accident. Small light-weight cars are cheaper to repair but they get damaged more easily and this may lead to serious injuries to those who are inside of it. The higher is the mass of your vehicle the less damage it will take in case of collision. That's why big SUVs are considered to be quite safe from this point of view.

It is good to see what car insurance rates you can get for different cars before you actually buy the auto. If the question of insurance price really concerns you then choose a vehicle that is cheaper to insure. And if the rates don't bother you much, just buy a car that you really like.

POS (Point of Service) health insurance benefits explained

When it comes to health coverage these days, we sure have a lot of various options to choose from. One of such options, which has become quite popular lately are Point Of Service (POS) plans that can be viewed as a mix of traditional indemnity and modern managed coverage options. And what such a combination provides you with are money saving potential and flexibility, all in a single package.

Health coverage on two levels at once

People familiar with HMO plans can easily see the similarity between HMOs and PPOs when it comes to organizing the services. Here you are also required to choose a PCP (Primary Care Physician), who will coordinate your services and provide referrals to other specialists within the network when required. But you are also free to choose any facility or physician that doesn't make a part of the specified network. And a POS plan will pay for such services out of the network, however to a narrower extent than with in-network services. So it will still cost you less to get your services within the POS network.

This is what is meant by two levels of insurance coverage, which are called "in plan" and "out of plan" health insurance. In plan coverage is usually more advantageous but it also has tighter restrictions imposed on the user. Like in case of HMO plans, in order to get full coverage at the "in plan" level you will have to provide a referral from your PCP and get your services within the network. You will also sometimes be required to get additional approval from your insurance administrator beforehand.

This all means that even sticking to the specialists and facilities of your POS network won't give you full coverage unless you provide a referral from your PCP. This is the so called "red tape", which is one of the biggest complaints about managed insurance plans and the formalities within them. However, when compared to indemnity plans, managed health care provides substantial money saving possibilities that can't be beaten.

The indemnity part of POS

POS plans provide the best of both worlds, that's why they are so popular. And when it comes to the indemnity part of POS plans, people find a lot of flexibility and freedom that just can't be obtained through typical managed care options. Just like in the case of PPO plans, you are still able to get insurance coverage even when addressing to a specialist outside of the POS provider network.

In other words, you can use "self-referrals" in order to get care from a specialist you choose. When treatment is required, you are free to choose any physician or facility without needing a special referral from your PCP, Still, you won't get much coverage when choosing this option, so flexibility still has its price.

However, this is a great way to avoid the restrictions typical for managed care plans. That will be very useful for those who have a long-term trusted physician outside the network. Still, in such a case you will have high co-insurance payments (up to 40%) that will make your visits a bit more costly if compared to a doctor from the POS network.

Finding the right plan

In order to get cheap health insurance with your POS plan you have to shop around first. Try getting as much health insurance quotes from different providers as you can, compare them and choose the right policy.

EPO (Exclusive Provider Organization) health insurance in-depth overview

Having an Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) means that the medical service providers you will receive care from should have signed up an agreement with the insurance company to allow offering you these services. This way EPO plans are somewhat similar to PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) plans, meaning that the person having such a plan can obtain inexpensive medical services at a facility that makes part of the EPO network. Still, if you choose to receive your medical care at a facility outside the network, a PPO plan will still cover your costs, only to a smaller extent. With most EPO plans, you won't receive any insurance coverage when visiting a specialist outside the network.

When you choose an EPO plan, you will instantly notice that the fees you are charged with by the medical service providers that have accepted to join your insurance company's network are significantly lower than those normally charged. So when you receive your health benefits within the EPO network, you can rest assured that the rates you will be charged for the services will be very advantageous and your insurance provider will pay for all the services you receive.

However, if you have a condition that none of the specialists making part of the EPO network can help you with and you are forced to seek medical attention outside of the network, make sure you have enough money because you will pay for the service to the full extent. This is because EPO plans do not include any services provided outside the selection of facilities and specialists that have an agreement with the insurance carrier. Moreover, in contrast with PPO and HMO plans that have fairly large networks of health service providers, EPO plans usually have a much smaller number of specialists and facilities being part of their network. This means that you have fewer professionals to choose from when you need medical attention.

In what concerns health service providers, their advantage in joining an EPO network is in the increased number of patients they work with. So instead of charging higher rates to a smaller number of patients, they charge lower rates for a much higher number of people and get more revenue as a result. This is especially useful to those providers who target themselves at a certain geographical area and want to get more people through group health insurance coverage plans. The insurance companies, which choose to provide EPO plans charge their customers with monthly premiums and act as mediators between the customers and the medical service providers.

As a conclusion, EPO plans would definitely be appealing to those looking for cheap health insurance and having no special medical needs such as pre-existing conditions. The group of people who will probably benefit the most from such plans are young healthy workers with no serious health risks. And those who will find EPO plans quite uncomfortable are older people with complicated conditions that need regular and special care from certain specialist, who may be outside the network. Think well before you purchase such a plan and make sure to shop around to get the best rates. Use health insurance quotes online or contact your agent to see what local providers can offer and start from there.

Impact - MLRs (Medical Loss Ratios)

I am watching President Obama sign the new health insurance (care) reform bill on CNN. I wanted to share some things I have heard recently that may eventually impact the number of carriers in California selling individual and family plans either through exchanges or privately, or both.

While carriers (insurance companies) can boast an overall MLR (medical loss ratio) above 85%, this number is generally inclusive of all sectors of insurance (large group, small group, individual and senior). However, when small group and individual (especially individual) is segregated out, the MLR often falls well below 80% with an average running about 74% on individual and family health plans.

"MLR" is the ratio of premiums paid in to what is paid out for medical care and wellness. The current reform will require in 2011 that all carriers selling individual and family plans must meet 80% MLR in that market. That means every company selling health plans in California by 2011 must be spending at least 80 cents of every dollar received in premiums on healthcare and related expenses.

I will save the reduction in administrative costs necessary for another post. Needless to say it certainly is probable that reduction in those expenses, including agent commissions, will occur.

My concern is if and how some carriers will be able to meet the new MLR.

I suspect that some carriers may choose to exit the market in California instead of trying to achieve 80% MLR on individual & family health coverage.
I will be curious to see who is left standing between now and 2014.

Health Insurance Reform Has Passed

In a very close vote, HR 3590 was passed this evening 219-212.

Health Insurance Reform - What To Expect

Happy Sunday to you all. I am watching the House vote and waiting for the final determination on the Health Insurance (Health Care) Reform Bill.

Since I have received many questions concerning changes I thought I'd quickly summarize here what to expect initially if/when this Bill is passed and signed into law today.

During the first year you can expect:

Pre-Existing Conditions - The Bill includes $5 billion in immediate support to provide temporary coverage to uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions. The money would help until the new health insurance exchanges are created in 2014.

Elimination of Benefit Caps - New policies sold will not have annual caps on benefits nor lifetime caps on benefits.

Children with Pre-Existing Conditions - Children with pre-existing health conditions will not be excluded from purchasing health insurance coverage.

Preventive Care - New insurance policies will be required to offer free preventive care benefits.

Small Business Tax Credit - A tax credit for small businesses up to 50% of premiums to help small businesses purchase health insurance.

Help for Seniors - $250 towards drug coverage in the "donut hole" to help pay for prescription drugs.

Appeals Process - An independent appeals process will be set up for those who feel that they were unfairly denied a claim by their insurance company.

Other changes take place in 2014 and beyond.

How To Get Make Quick Easy Money

Economic growth, an increasing number of employment opportunities, not easy to come and build their own business and being your own boss is an extension of ideas. Thank technology, we now have the Internet, it can make it possible on the Internet have their own business. If you have connected to the Internet, you can from the comfort of your home, almost no cost to all businesses in their own computer. Internet companies have tons of a choice, to make a lot of money, monthly, but I would like to talk about affiliate marketing business.

As an affiliate your task is simple. You will have to work with a company of your choice on any Internet market a few. Then, you need to send to their site visitors to achieve a percentage of sales each time one of their visitors through one of the products you buy them. It is important to know, when you start and the time and energy to the initial investment required for operation and management, but the time and effort required to bring a small amount compared to business management from today. In this first part of an online business is a matter of fact after installation can monitor the work of the unmanned aircraft, they produce huge long-term funding.

If you have at least 2 - 3 hours, you can click on a subsidiary to promote your business, you can begin to see results, as long as your commitment to your efforts. Is it possible to begin production, and even sleep in your money.

Medicare You Can Buy Into Act - Grayson (D-FL)

Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida has authored H.R. 4789. The Bill, titled "Medicare You Can Buy Into Act" or "Public Option Act", would open up Medicare enrollment to US residents of all ages 19 and above. The link below is for this bill, which is only four pages long.

Read The Bill Here

Tips to Increase page views on your blog

Work by some blogs recently, I tried to increase the user's blog page-per-view. I have found that user access, an average of only 2. It is strange that most of the next blog Dawson, care AOT views on the page, they are too busy to click on Adsense and concerns related to access, even make a profit! However, it can increase page views also lead to more users to your blog, and not by custom to leave. Increase the reader can increase the linkcount, and references, and also have a password of the network services of the mouth. I tried to launch a blog and can keep them in the blog are some tips for tourists. Deep-link on your site: If you have to read through the search engine, employment, and opportunities for you, and an initial interest in this specific problem. The link to open the same subject or topic is a great way to keep your blog and are displayed to the user. For you, Äôve link with the previous post written comments, and this is the way comedy will return to the previous joke, and the public is troubled.

Under the Tang, AOT participation of all of your content in RSS format: If you can help the blind to show your post feed, and excerpts from your RSS. Not the whole story. This will stop the reader from reading posts users and force them to return to your site.

Please refer to the user does not have its own: to capture the user's attention and impressed their feelings. Talk about things that may help in your office. If you find that your blog a bit with a lot of knowledge and information, Äôll easy to increase page views a useful resource.

Targeted traffic: access to topics of great importance, and your blog will increase your user's overall satisfaction of the blog engine traffic. In an attempt to target the blog your own tags in the title, then copy the specific keywords.

Related posts: If you are using Wordpress appears beginning, the Avenue of the Stars a nice little components, and allows you to prove to the position with the current. We hope that this will allow blog readers to find jobs old and have become deeper and navigation.

Good navigation and labeling: It is, Street Stars mark significant messages and put them in a good navigation system. You also can bring, such as the 10 most senior positions of the read or components feature in the function

To create a series of articles: a series of positions, it is almost certain that the return visit will attract visitors. A string can contain any number of functions, with the passage of time, to disclose more detailed information on each progress, kindof like the soap opera

Comment in response: When the views and functionality specific users, to spend some time and effort to answer any questions or comments. This will help you to get the link with your readers.

Additional features: readers like features, and opinion polls, gravatars, e-mail subscriptions, and games are all factors that help to increase your blog's overall user experience.

I agree that this man is not all hosted blog visitors views or increase the page. If you have any suggestions please go to these comments, and good luck, even Monyet Online

Can Make Money While You Sleep

Looking for a great way to start from the money home, and your working hours? You want to be your own boss? Who does not want to earn money while enjoying their lives? If you want to make money, and even in your sleep, can not be affiliate marketing a huge asset in their own way.

Of course, there are many ways to earn money at home, but not so simple. Prior notice, and will have a number of efforts, if you want to affiliate marketing, but only for the first time a lot of money. When you first start in the business, and this very important period of time before things started quickly.

You have to do? First of all, you should know a little about a great way to sales of products. When you engage in this business, will be the advertising companies or individuals who sell products or services. Will establish the links will take traffic directly to products and services online.

Basically, you will be there with ads are not true. You will pay through the sale of your link that is posted directly to the product. It is clear that this will help you wise for the company in the market because it will be converted into cash in your pocket. Now, you need to know that there are different companies, and can be adopted by you.

Also, you can with this will a certain percentage of your money with your help to complete the sale involves taking different actions. Sometimes all you need is to find someone to fill out the form on your website. This is the simplest of the Commission, you can get.

However, there are many different affiliate marketing program, and will sell products ranging from a few dollars to thousands of dollars. Percentage of the Commission, you may receive an increase over time you sell more.

The quickest way for you to get the commission is to make sure that you are using search engine optimization to get the public's right to your company website, so that the numbers game for you to achieve. We all know that sales is a numbers game. When you log on to the people, the right people, and sales will happen. Before you know it, the money will come flooding to you, or even in your sleep.

Credit Card Debt Management

Must focus on identifying the rights of the agreement, the company's process. Today, there is no real company to leave the market, you can rest assured that the government will ban all the work in the company of all settlements. In fact, it is not possible to take legal action against the company, while other companies are not very volatile means that a good company around. You first take a look, and for the company. How do you? Must take advantage of the network edge or must rely on other resources? How kind of yellow pages? These are silly questions, but a significant impact on the working methods. Will find hard to believe that your service provider, if you think you can do more to find a better company. Internet use is the main solution is not clear. However, no use of the Internet applications, and mind only when you click on the link first discovered the best debt settlement companies often will not work.

On the contrary, your search service provider to help you reduce to the chase immediately. Rather than contact with you to the service provider, you should choose on the Internet resources to make your job easier. You find?. The only thing you should know who to trust and to avoid. In addition to the rights of the company's solution should take into account use the Internet to obtain more information about the agreement, as a whole concept of information. There are many aspects related to the performance, but must rely on it to get the best information and debt relief.

California HIPAA Dance (Redux)

Another change for HIPAA in California.

Blue Shield of California, in response to Anthem's proposed premium payment arrangement (which is apparently not going to be fully implemented), has taken the following action with regard to HIPAA plan enrollments in California.

Effective 3/2/10, PPO enrollments from HIPAA plans will no longer offer any date of the month not before application receipt date. Now, 1st or 15th of the month following approval of the application.

From Wall Street Journal "The Wellpoint Mugging"

A very interesting article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Wellpoint Mugging

Some parts of the article are quite telling.

He ought to subpoena California's political class because Wellpoint's rate hikes are the direct result of the Golden State's insurance regulations—the kind that Democrats want to impose on all 50 states. Under federal Cobra rules, the unemployed are allowed to keep their job-related health benefits for 18 to 36 months. California then goes further and bars Anthem from dropping these customers even after they have exhausted Cobra. California also caps what Anthem can charge these post-Cobra customers.

This next one hits home for me as one of the leading Anthem HIPAA producers in California. While I know that Anthem is taking losses on the guaranteed-issue side, I also am confident that my book of Anthem HIPAA business (which apparently is #2 in the state of CA right behind e-healthinsurance)is not creating losses. Yes, the whole pool is losing money and Anthem has been covering almost 80% of it for several years (same with MRMIP). However, I always strive to do proper case development before I pick the appropriate HIPAA plan for a client and find I have a fairly even spread between my three California major medical carriers. And no, Anthem has not invited me to lunch for my high HIPAA production LOL!

This explains why Anthem lost $58 million in California on its post-Cobra customers in 2009. If WellPoint didn't raise premiums amid these losses, it would soon be under assault from its shareholders, if not out of business.

The company presented its findings to California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner last November, who had a month to review the proposed increases and never objected. But recently amid the White House campaign, Mr. Poizner has joined the chorus claiming to be "skeptical" of the increases and demanding that Anthem postpone them while he conducts a review. Anthem has done so.

More HIPAA Dancing

I have learned that Anthem Blue Cross California has again changed its position with regard to HIPAA enrollments.

Apparently they have backed off of the "no premium" with application design (which virtually guaranteed a 60-day minimum gap in coverage) and will allow premium submission with the application in the near future.

The current no premium program was only in effect on the HMO HIPAA plans, not the PPO HIPAA plans. Anthem had indicated a desire to have a unified HIPAA application with no premium pre-payment possible. Apparently this has been scrapped and HIPAA applicants will soon be able to pre-pay premiums for both HMO and PPO HIPAA plans with Anthem Blue Cross CA.

Get Top Rankings With SEO ULTIMATE

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions, perpetuated by industry SEO experts, is that a website must follow perfect SEO strategies to get top rankings. While adhering to simple common SEO standards does help the search engines both find and index your site more quickly, it doesn't guarantee by any stretch of the imagination, that following those SEO guidelines will propel your site to the top of the rankings.
If only search engine optimization was that easy!
No doubt, there are some SEO faux pases that will do harm to your site's rankings, especially in Google, the ultimate hall-monitor all puffed up and ready to pounce on any misbehaving webmaster. Things such as keyword stuffing, keyword spamming or linking out to bad neighborhoods such as link farms, pharmaceutical or gambling sites may get you blacklisted.
But how much SEO do you need? How much search engine optimization do you need to get top rankings? Do you need a whole lot or do you need very little SEO?
Actually, after 10 years of marketing online, the answer to that question varies depending upon what you're trying to accomplish with your SEO efforts? If you're operating an online business in a very competitive (read lucrative) market, SEO will be high on your agenda as you go about annihilating your competition.
Even if you're an ordinary webmaster or website owner you're probably fussing over your rankings in the search engines. The higher your rankings you achieve for your chosen keywords; the more traffic you will get. Good quality traffic that convert well into loyal subscribers and fans of your site.
Many webmasters and companies spend thousands of dollars each month in order to get their keywords and sites up to the top of the list. If you're into affiliate marketing, your daily income will rise and fall almost parallel to your rankings. Now, if my earnings increase, I know automatically my rankings have gone up, usually in Google. If my earnings go down, I know my rankings have gone south. Some times even a drop or rise of one place on the first page SERPs will affect how much you earn.
Obviously, because of this fact, SEO or how well I am optimized for the search engines is extremely important to me. I am constantly building quality links and quality content for my sites. Some keyword battles you win, some battles you lose. I have been fighting some keyword battles for over 3 or 4 years now!
But how much SEO is enough? How much SEO should you do with your sites? Many webmasters make sure all their on page set-up or lay-out is done exactly to what the SEO experts say you should do. This is not a bad idea. Make sure your Title, URL, Headlines, Keyword Density... are all laid out right. These are things we can control and adjust to meet the SEO standards.
Other SEO or ranking factors are much harder to predict, many of them are simply out of our control. How other sites link to us, what they put in the anchor text, what they say about us... simply things we can't control.
I believe the over-riding reason why your site is listed at the top of any rankings has to do with the number, the quality and the quantity of sites linking back to your page. The higher the number of related quality one-way links you have flowing back to your site, the higher it will perform in the rankings. Your anchor text is very important (underlined part of a link); it must contain your keywords or variations of it. The content on the linking page should also be related to your chosen keywords.
Get this part right and you will get high rankings.
Or at least this has been my experience -- all the other ranking factors do count but this is the over-riding factor in my opinion.
Another major ranking factor lately, has been the importance Google is placing on social media links. Get your content to the first page of Digg with lots of diggs and it will rank high in Google. This is not surprising when you consider the nature of these social bookmarking sites... it really is an actual "vote" for the quality of your content. Getting Delicious bookmarks has a similar positive effect.
Another prominent factor, from my observations, is having your major keyword in your Domain Name. Use hyphens if you want but having those keywords in there, does help rather than hinder your rankings.
Now if you're wondering about how Google ranks pages or your keywords.... Google has around 200 ranking factors (with filters and penalties thrown in to make all our lives interesting) which it uses to rank your keywords/pages. This is still the best online resource that lists all of Google's ranking factors.
Now the question still remains, how much SEO do you need? How much time should you spend at optimizing, building links, worrying your head off over the latest Google Itch?
The answer always comes back to quality content. Create a site that has quality content and the SEO will take care of itself. People will link to your site, you will get bookmarks in all the social media sites, Google will find your content and rank it. Your SEO will grow naturally as your site grows. Keep building more pages, keep targeting more and more related keywords in your niche or subject area and you will get higher rankings.
Now, of course, some webmasters are a little more aggressive in how quickly they want their rankings to rise to the top of the search engines. Here's something you can do if you want to go into the SEO battle full-force.
1. Download SEOquake and place this free SEO toolbar plug-in on your Firefox browser.
2. Go to Google and type in the keyword or keyword phrase you're targeting with your site or content.
3. Click on the number one ranking and observe how many pages it has indexed, PageRank, how many backlinks it has, age of the site... and so on.
4. Then click the page info button and study all the on-page factors this site has and notice what it's doing with its page and keyword density lay-out.
5. Check all the backlinks this site has in the different search engines. Copy or try to get the same backlinks for your site that your competitor has acquired. Then get more backlinks and/or higher quality backlinks than your competitor.
6. Watch your rankings rise...
Just a few more words of wisdom and we're done. Some battles will be too tough to fight, the competition will be so stiff you just can't compete. Other battles will take a long time; months, even years before you rise to the top. Your best bet is to choose long-tail (multi-worded) keywords that have little or no competition. You can rise to the top within days, even hours. The sweet thing is this: long-tail keywords are often the most lucrative and bring in the most sales. For in the final analysis, you just don't want SEO, you want smart SEO. And you will quickly learn, most times you can often out-smart your competition, even if you can't out-rank them.