(Search Engine Land) –  At various times it’s been called AMP or APEX, but today Yahoo introduced its new “unified digital advertising platform,” which the company is now calling APT. With the platform it gained through the Right Media acquisition at its core, Yahoo is positioning APT as a dynamic, open marketplace (dispensing with the term “exchange”).

The central idea is very simple: simplification of buying and selling advertising across the internet. The first customers — indeed the apparent drivers of the initiative — are Yahoo’s newspaper partners.

Search is not a part of APT at this point. But previously Yahoo President Sue Decker said that it would encompass all ad types and formats across Yahoo and its partner network:

We are building a cutting edge ad platform that runs across all formats, whether it is search, display, video. It is capable of harnessing the power of Yahoo and the power off Yahoo. But it will also take advantage of emerging formats like mobile, all in an easy to use system.

APT was formally unveiled in New York today, with an appearance by Jon Hamm, the actor who plays advertising executive Don Draper on the popular AMC show Mad Men. Lots of sweeping and dramatic claims are being made for APT and how it will affect online advertising.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang blogged about the launch:

Our confidence in APT’s ability to transform the marketplace isn’t based on theory or conjecture. It’s because of the feedback we’ve been hearing from partners who have been working with us side-by-side as we developed and then began testing the platform. In fact, William Dean Singleton, CEO of Media News Group (parent company of the San Jose Mercury News), also joined us on stage today, using words like “extraordinary and “sea-change” to describe how APT will take MNG into the future.

Yang characterized it as a “platform that would be to 2009 what radio was to 1924, TV to 1947, color TV to 1965, and the Internet to 1993.”

Google, AOL and Microsoft all have their own “next generation” ad platforms in the works or various stages of development. For example, just yesterday AOL announced its own: BidPlace.

Clearly APT is consistent with what advertisers, agencies and publishers want: reach, targeting and simplification. But we’ll get to see in the coming months whether it can deliver for them — and for Yahoo.

Yes, another way to optimize, another acronym to add to the pile. But what is Digital asset optimization? (DAO I guess) It’s basically taking your digital assets, i.e. flikr photos, youtube videos, pdf’s etc. and optimizing them for the search engines. This type of optimization is a direct result of the Web 2.0 movement. We have already seen these being indexed. Here is a good example of digital asset optimization in action.

Ok, enough of the definition, how do we optimize these assets? There are two ways to do this for both on page and off page. What do I mean by this?

On page Digital Asset Optmization :
This would be considered the images, blog posts, videos, pdf’s you have on your site. Ways to increase indexing are first naming the file with your keywords you want to rank (and the ultimate them of the asset, duh!) If you have a video or image of your company’s offerings or even strategy- label it as xyz_strategy.jpg. Most site programmers and designers label it with their own interpretation of what’s in the image rather than keyword focus.

Next, add an alt tag. This should be done for the major images, not the graphic images that make up the website, i.e. spacers and border images.

Lastly add the keyword you want to focus in the content as many times and it fits. No, I’m not saying add sentences like, “check out xyz strategy because xyz strategy is the best xyz strategy.” That’s considered keyword stuffing and is prohibited by most of the search engines. And always focus on one or two keywords. Trying to rank one page for 15 different keywords gets you nowhere is the search results and also lessens the chance for a visitor to convert.

Off page Digital Asset Optmization :
This would be your Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, Delicious, and every other social networking application TechCrunch reports on.
Most of these sites provide areas to include, title, description, and tags to use in their own search results but Google has been indexing of course, YouTube results and I’m sure once deals are in place others will follow.

Digital Asset Optimization has become a important compliment to traditional SEO so keep this in mind when creating that rich media.