I had the pepper steak combo (with eggroll and wonton soup) at my local Chinese restaurant a few days ago. After lunch, my fortune was "Slow but steady wins the race." I smiled when I read that because I'd just been thinking about the many "get rich quick" methods of internet marketing that are being promoted today. Do a search on Google for "SEO" and you'll find some of them. They may promise to "guarantee" top listings on Google or Yahoo, or suggest they have a special relationship with the search engines that can rocket your website to that coveted number one position.

Just as in the "offline" world, there's no shortcut to long-term success, and search engine optimization isn't any different. There's no easy way to trick Google and Yahoo into listing your site higher. Take it from the folks at Google themselves. So how do you get your website noticed by prospective customers?

The one thing all search engines seem to love is fresh, quality content. Oddly enough, that's exactly what your website's visitors are looking for. They want to see that your business or organization is alive and well, and they want to know enough about you to make a decision whether to buy from you, or join your cause, or take a job at your company.

So here are four basic tips on how to improve your online presence, and in turn improve your rankings in the search engines:

• When writing content for your business or organization website, tell the whole story. Don't skimp on the details. Tell your visitors what you would want to know about your company if you knew nothing about it. Give them the information to make a decision right then.
• Keep the website updated. Think about the many websites we visit in a week that haven't been updated in months or even years. How confident are you about the current status of that company? They might be doing so well that they're too busy to update their website, but aren't we more likely to assume they've gone out of business?
• Consider starting a business blog. Search engines love blogs because there are usually many legitimate links coming in and out of the website, as you link to other interesting content and the media and other websites link to your compelling content.
• Use social media and networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to connect with potential visitors to your site. The more you get the web address out there, the more likely people with find you and pay your site a visit.

There have always been temporary ways to game a system, including search engine rankings. Usually those loopholes are closed fairly quickly, as Google and Yahoo change their methods to keep their rankings accurate. The methods I describe above, however, while they won't bring overnight success, will in the long run build viewership to your website and improve your appearance in the search engines.

Slow but steady wins the race. Don't take shortcuts, invest the time and money needed to create a great online presence, and the rest will follow.

Yahoo gets desperate - by Paul R. La Monica from CNNMoney.com   "Investors must hope the search engine is trying to squeeze more cash out of Microsoft because a purchase of AOL doesn't make sense." 

Google Android phones make debut - from BBC News   "The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google's Android software for mobile phones have gone on show."

Study: Artificial Sweeteners Increase Weight Gain Odds - from ABC News   "Calorie-conscious consumers who opt for diet sodas may gain more weight than if they drank sugary drinks because of artificial sweeteners contained in the diet sodas, according to a new study."

Yahoo’s Bold Whimper - by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch   "...[I]t seems that Yahoo did in fact make a decision yesterday. They will reject Microsoft’s offer. A flat and stubborn No should be coming on Monday."

Shareholders Want Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Done -- Pronto - by Betsy Schiffman from Wired Blog Network   "Yahoo shareholders don't care if Steve Ballmer is the emperor of evil, nor do they care about the implications of the merger to Flickr. The thing that matters most to shareholders is Yahoo's stock price, and that looked awfully ugly before Microsoft came in with its $31 per share offer."

Analyst: Microsoft's Yahoo bid may be fake - by Benjamin Pimentel from MarketWatch   "Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research speculated Thursday that Microsoft made the stunning $44.6 billion merger proposal as a way to block a possible alliance between Yahoo and another Internet behemoth, Amazon.com."

The Search Market Fallout Of Microsoft-Yahoo - by Richard Martin from InformationWeek   "When tigers battle, mice get fat. That pseudo-Chinese proverb well describes one likely outcome of Microsoft's $44 billion bid for Yahoo, which would reduce the top three Web search providers to just two: Google and Micro-Hoo (or whatever the mashup of Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN Live search tool would be called)."

Hearing on Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Postponed - by Andrew Ross Sorkin from The New York Times   "Fortune’s Techland blog suggested other factors were at work: It quoted anonymous sources as saying that lawmakers realized they had acted a bit prematurely, given that Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo is far from a fait accompli."

A Radical Option For Yahoo: Out-Open Google - by Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch   "There is another option to consider, though. That is to hit Google where it hurts by truly opening up search."

OpenID Has Big New Friends -  by Carleen Hawn from GigaOM   "The idea of a universal ID to simplify consumer’s lives has been around for some time. With today’s endorsement, OpenID’s potential base has been pushed to nearly 1 billion users."

Do Not Call Registry extension fast-tracked to the President - by Jacqui Cheng from ars technica   "Congress has approved new legislation that will modify the National Do Not Call registry to make it more like the "Never Call" Registry."

Facebook, MySpace Hit by Zero-Day Flaw - by Jake Soriano from Trend Micro   "A vulnerability in the image uploader used by MySpace and Facebook was recently discovered by security researchers, bringing about issues of the possibility of exploits and malicious users gaining access to affected systems."

Spam continues to increase, Symantec says - by Robert Vamosi from CNET   "Spam now accounts for 78.5 percent of all e-mail traffic, according to a new report from Symantec. That's up from previous months. And Europe, not the United States, can now claim to be the source of most spam."

Decision Time For Yahoo - by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch   "The dust is settling on Microsoft’s $31 per share offer to acquire Yahoo, and the options left open to the company are fairly well understood at this point. There will almost certainly be no White Knight or other buyout offer coming to the table."

Real ID could mean real travel headaches - by Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh from CNET   "In just more than three months, millions of law-abiding Americans might face new hassles when traveling on commercial flights if they hold driver's licenses or identification cards issued by states that have rejected the Real ID regulations on privacy and cost grounds or have not agreed to comply."

Yahoo! and the future of the Internet - by David Drummond from Official Google Blog   "Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?" Google's Chief Legal Officer responds to Friday's announcement that Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share.

Raising Awareness of WiFi Risks - by Dan Sullivan from Realtime Community | Messaging & Web Security   "An employee working on a laptop in Midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park used what he thought was a publicly available Wi-Fi signal to get Internet access. But the signal he used had been set up by a hacker."

Microsoft bids $44.6 billion for Yahoo - by Ina Fried from CNET    "Microsoft went public Friday with a $44.6 billion cash-and-stock bid to acquire Yahoo. In its response, Yahoo called the Microsoft bid "unsolicited" but did not reject it."

As Twitter Service Woes Continue, Japanese Money Looks Likely - by Duncan Riley from TechCrunch   "On the reliability side, the move to Verio isn’t going well for Twitter so far with regular down time, delayed messages and related issues in the just over 24 hours since the move was made."

Does Portal’s Success Presage Game Industry Shift? - by Wagner James Au from GigaOM   "...Portal is basically a non-violent, low-budget puzzle game that takes about 5 to 8 hours to play, and features a folk rock song. In other words, a crossover-casual game, the kind of thing you could easily get your girlfriend or even your mom to enjoy...."

Will you be spewing Storm spam at 10am tomorrow morning? - from Sophos    "Research reveals the daily rise and fall of Storm botnet, as malware attack accounts for one in 25 of all emails."

Yahoo’s OpenID Service Launches Public Beta - by Adam Ostrow from Mashable    "Now that I’ve seen it in action, I feel like Yahoo’s effort may be fairly effective in driving OpenID adoption. To mainstream users, OpenID is probably a completely foreign concept."

Doc Allen's VersaTool - by John Rigby from Cool Tools    "My kids are good at dismantling things, so having this on hand saves time and allows me to complete repairs immediately without having to remember to return to them later."