If you really hate the idea of learning about SEO to promote your website, there are three things you absolutely must do if you’re to succeed at all.

First: Get a search-engine-friendly CSS design,

Second: put up some quality content that people will actually want to read, and

Third: arrange for some respectable links.

This last task will probably take you a lot of time, but arm yourself with the right information and it will be a lot easier and a lot more successful. One of the most difficult, but probably most rewarding tips, is to ‘reverse engineer’ links to your competitors. This will involve looking at who’s linking to them and try and get some of those links for yourself! You could also try to get a link from colleges that have a department that teaches what you do. If you can swing it, such a link would be really useful to you as a .edu link is one of the most valuable of all.
I came across is a great YouTube video by Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive. He has some really interesting things to say about linking, which we should all know about. Take the time to watch the video (below): you might be surprised at what you learn. If you can’t see the video from inside this post, go back to the main SEO blog page and it’ll appear above this post.
This interview with Michael Gray AKA Graywolf is a more recent post with some breaking-news information about linking. Also, take the time to look at Graywolf’s linking tips. Here’s another expert at work. That post was created in 2006, but it’s all still highly relevant stuff.

• Add this to Social Bookmarking
  
  • Subscribe
  • Blinklist
  • Bloglines
  • Blogmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Ma.gnolia
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

It can be really hard to find your way in the maze that is SEO nowadays. Most of us read up on what the experts–or whoever it is we consider experts–to help us out. But I’ve noticed lately there’s a lot of divergence in their opinions. In our interview the other day, Rand Fishkin had this to say:

We’ve seen Google take some pretty harsh, direct steps against reciprocal linking…

Don’t miss this great article by Rand on the subject of ‘under the radar’ link purchasing too.

On the other hand, Eric Ward who is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost linking experts in the industry, has different linking advice. I highly recommend you read Eric’s sound linking advice and follow his instructions.

Other search marketing voices who have a say in this subject include Webpro News who have some sage advice for anyone looking for links.

This is by no means an exhaustive discussion on linking strategies, but it’s plenty to get you going in the right direction.

• Add this to Social Bookmarking
  
  • Subscribe
  • Blinklist
  • Bloglines
  • Blogmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Ma.gnolia
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

How many backlinks you have is critical to your search engine ranking, particularly as far as Google is concerned. How to get more, and specifically appropriate backlinks is the eternal conundrum for webmasters. Let me state the obvious: you can never have too many backlinks!

A good place to start when you’re drawing up a battle plan to beat your competitors is to find out how many backlinks you have, compared to them. There are a number of websites that will help you do this. SEO Book provides a nifty software application that will enable you to analyze your links from your desktop.

If you prefer to use someone else’s tools, here is a link to Market Leap’s excellent tool. You’ll find loads more if you do a search. The think is to get a good idea of what sort of links you have and how many, and to get a plan for more links. More on that tomorrow!

• Add this to Social Bookmarking
  
  • Subscribe
  • Blinklist
  • Bloglines
  • Blogmarks
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Ma.gnolia
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati