From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and “buy” traffic, by various means.

As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the “big boys” at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.

The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don’t think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.

The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.

Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I’d rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it’s first update, less than 2 months after our launch.

Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.

The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.

1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the “SERP’s” (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.

2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.

3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, “green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing”) that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I’ll be polite.

4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don’t need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it’s own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.

5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the “pay” stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.

6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no “Top Secret” practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can’t be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.

7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.

8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.

9. Remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.

10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any “shortcuts” or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it’s all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.

11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn’t carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.

12. It’s more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don’t normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the “right fit” into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, “Am I your only client?” I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.

About the author:
James ‘Doc’ Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.

Recently, most people have noticed significant changes in the SERPs at Google. Web sites that previously held number one positions have dropped to number 899, and some web sites have disappeared off the Google results pages altogether. As is the case with all major Google updates, SEOs have been panicking in forums and there has been much discussion about one topic in particular: reciprocal linking.

The first thing you have to do to understand the direction in which Google is taking with this update, is to get into the minds of the people who run it. Something that is so often overlooked is the fact that Google (and any other search engine) is first and foremost, a business. The reason they offer the service they do, is to make money, to make stocks soar and to keep shareholders happy. Google’s income comes from many sources, but the main one is advertising. In order to be able to sell their advertising real estate for a profitable price, the ad space needs to be seen. In order for the ad space to be seen, many, many, many people must visit the Google web site and use the Google search engine. In order for Google traffic to be at such a level, Google must offer a great, if not the best, search engine service.

So, how does Google offer, or attempt to offer, the absolute best service possible? By having the most relevant, and most useful search results.

Useful and relevant web sites are sites that are extremely visitor-friendly, sites that offer a lot of quality information in many different forms, from RSS feeds, to articles, to forums. Sites that are organized and have developed, naturally, a respect on the internet. A great example of such a site is About.com – search for any topic on About.com and you get a page with a lot of information on that topic and many, many links to other web sites that carry further information. It is, undoubtedly, one of the best places on the Internet to go for information.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. In the past, Google has evaluated web sites by looking at areas of the site that are easily manipulated by webmasters and SEOs, such as meta tags, alt tags, keyword density, page titles, etc. We all know this has changed. Google has begun to reward sites with a more natural approach to these areas, and to penalize sites that have been over-optimized.

The key now, is visitor-friendly, natural web sites. Google will attract more repeat users, and thus, more advertising capital, if their search results always yield web sites that have the information searchers are looking for and are easy to use and understand.

Natural web sites are web sites who’s page titles reflect the page content in an easily understandable way. They are web sites who’s keywords meta tags contain only the words that apply to the page content. They have description tags that reflect the content in a concise, easily understood way. They have image alt tags that describe the image properly. Most importantly, natural web sites are web sites that develop a natural link popularity. That is to say, they don’t have someone working on finding web sites to swap links with. This is an unnatural linking strategy. A natural linking strategy is to offer a good, resourceful web site and have people link to it of their own accord because it’s such a great resource. Such a strategy also includes linking out to quality web sites that offer further information on your web site’s topic, whether or not they link back to you. This is a huge indicator that the goal of your web site is simply to offer the best information possible to web site visitors.

Cross-promotion will happen naturally as well, and links that are a result of cross-promotion are still considered a natural linking strategy, and as a result, Google or any other search engine cannot not outlaw reciprocal linking all together. But you have to be extremely picky about the sites you decide to engage in cross-promotion with. They must be very relevant and should have a decent presence on Google. Stay away from automated linking programs, link farms and most importantly, exchanging links with excessive amounts of web sites. Your links page should look like an excellent place for your visitors to go should they require further information on the topic your site deals with.

In short, the most important factor contributing to your Google ranking, is visitor-friendliness. Amassing enormous amounts of link exchanges simply does not work anymore. You absolutely must have your web site visitor’s needs foremost in your mind. If you meet those needs, you will be rewarded both in your rankings and in repeat traffic.

About the author:
Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs – http://www.abalone.ca, a search engine optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area.

 From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and “buy” traffic, by various means.

As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the “big boys” at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.

The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don’t think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.

The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.

Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I’d rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on its first update, less than 2 months after our launch.

Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.

The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.

1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the “SERP’s” (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.

2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.

3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, “green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing”) that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I’ll be polite.

4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don’t need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it’s own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.

5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the “pay” stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.

6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no “Top Secret” practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can’t be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A SEO expert will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.

7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.

8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.

9. Remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.

10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any “shortcuts” or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it’s all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.

11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn’t carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.

12. It’s more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don’t normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the “right fit” into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, “Am I your only client?” I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.

About the author:

James ‘Doc’ Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.

Websites that maintain good incoming links will get many targeted visitors from their link partners. These link partners are also a good source of information and can offer value for the visitors that come to your website more often. The idea behind link partners is to find web sites with complementary content so that you enhance your web site. For example, if you sell computers, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to link to a site that sells printers.

Linking to your competitors is much more dangerous. The fact of the matter is that when you link to your competitors you are handing them your business. They may be handing some of theirs back to you, but the trade off simply isn’t worth it. If you are in a situation where it is  your product or theirs, do not link to them. Aside from the obvious issue of losing business to their site, you may even lose the returning link if you don’t keep an eye on it.

When dealing with link partners, there’s virtually no point unless you get reciprocal links. These links make your website look good, as well as getting you targeted traffic from users clicking on the links. When you are optimizing your site for key words, however, it is important to link to sites that provide more information regarding the content that you have provided. In cases like this, the link is already helping you. If you get a returning link in addition it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

With good-quality incoming links, you will benefit greatly from the increased traffic to your site. Most major search engines’ rankings are at least partly based on the number of quality links pointing to your website. Google Yahoo!,MSN, Live, Inktomi and more all use link popularity in their formula for calculating rankings. 

The value of your link partner’s sites will be very important, as many of the search engines use this in determining how relevant your site is to the terms that are being searched on. A site with a page rank below three generally isn’t worth exchanging links with. Then again, if the site is on its way up, it might be a good idea to get in on the ground floor. If you are curious as to whether a site is going to be accumulating a higher page rank in a short period of time try going to http://www.iwebtool.com/rank and punching the site’s URL into the “backlink” tool or the “page rank predictor.” These will show you how many links the site has going to them and will let you know what the page rank could be within the next three months.

You must always keep an eye on the value, and use value-for-value exchanges only. Make sure that your link doesn’t get removed from any sites you link to, and remove your own link to them if it does. Many people will agree to link with you and then remove your link after a week or two. If you leave your site linked to them, then they’re the only one benefiting. 

Good link partners are hard to find, and it will take some time for them to respond. You may have to contact them more than once, and probably won’t take you seriously if you just ask them to trade you links. It is important to provide them with information relating to your company and let them know why your link will be worth while to them. If you are serious about SEO, you will be able to let them know that you expect your page rank to explode within the next few months and you may be able to accumulate links this way.

It’s important for to make sure that you links are checked on a regular basis. Of course you don’t have much control over the incoming links, but you can still do whatever you want with the outgoing ones. You should immediately remove any links that don’t work, as they can and will bring your search engine rankings down. 

By understanding how link partnering works and maintaining good quality links on your website, you can increase your targeted traffic and improve your sales. After all, isn’t that the whole point of having an online business? Just remember that your website, like any other business, takes time and effort to make it succeed, and any little way you can speed up the process is good – as long as it’s not against the rules, of course.

The experts’ advice to websites that have lost their ranking is usually to start over, following current and good SEO information. Look over your entire site and insure that you haven’t done something that would have caused this sudden change in listings and rankings. Normally if you haven’t done anything wrong, your links will slowly begin to reappear again especially if you have a nice sized linking network that is listed well.

One step that you can take is to narrow your site’s focus and work hard on one or two keywords. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s sufficient. Make sure each page of your site includes good enough navigation that someone can get anywhere from anywhere else, and make sure you do this with plain ‘a href’ links, not fancy JavaScript.

If you are using frames, now is a good time to dump them. You can replace them with scrollable <div> tags and have similar looking pages that search engines can index more easily. The most important concept in recovering from a ranking tumble is to perform damage control. Any SEO operation that you have performed that could be deemed as controversial you should immediately disband. If you are lucky, your web site hasn’t been permanently deleted from any important search engines.

Once you have performed all of the local damage control that you can it is a good idea to insure that your file sizes are relatively small. Make sure that you don’t have any excessive images or large external files that will cause a search engine to give up on its attempt to index you. Make sure that you haven’t created a linking loop that Google’s bots can’t find a way out of.

Links are very important to your website’s rankings, and you need to consider finding good link partners to improve your targeted traffic and keyword relevancy. If you have a decent corp of link partners already you can request that they move their links to your site to a higher traffic page for a short period of time so that you can get re-indexed. They may be willing to do this if you remind them that the links from your site to theirs are more valuable once you’ve been indexed than they are when you are unindexed.

If you submit to the search engines properly the first time and you have a good SEO maintenance plan, you’ll only need to submit your site once. You might consider hiring someone to keep your site regularly updated, as regularly-updated sites rank higher. If you have recently suffered a ranking tumble, use Google Sitemaps to get your page back into Google. This is the fastest method available and is the strongest damage control that you will be able to perform.

Build great content around your keywords or phrases. Remember that content is King for both visitors and search engines. Your content must be extremely relevant to your key words at this point. You don’t want to try to pull a fast one because this was probably the reason that your ranking tumbled in the first place. Remember: When you are recovering from a rank tumble, you are at the search engines’ mercy. You cannot possibly recover if you try to do anything that doesn’t seem right to the search engines.

Submit your website properly to each search engine and directory by hand, making sure you understand each site’s rules. Using automatic submissions is just not a good idea. There are so many things that can go wrong and you just don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. Work by hand and if possible, contact the search engine or directory and ask them if there is a specific reason that your site was suddenly removed. Ask them if there is any action that you can take to make up for any mistakes that you may have made.

Get as many one-way links as you can from directories or pay to have good websites link to yours. One-way links are better than two-way ones. 

Monitor your results regularly to find out what’s working and what’s not. Don’t be afraid to make changes. 

Keep all these things in mind and you can recover from a rankings tumble easily.

1. You need to start off by managing your links. This involves making sure that none of your current links are dead, and you should also check if there are any sites linking to you that you don’t know about. If your site consists of a large number of links you should make sure that they aren’t getting out of control and get rid of anything that is no longer relevant. Also make sure that your links are sufficiently labelled to reflect the page that they link to.

2. Re-order your links, putting the best ones first. And putting them into categories if you have a high number of links. If you have a links page with 25+ links it is a good idea to turn it into a directory of some sort. This can even help you in getting more links to your site in exchange for back links on the directory that you have created. Also check the sites that you link to and make sure that any back links that are due to you are still there as you don’t have much reason to keep a link if you aren’t getting the backlink that you deserve (if the back link was, indeed, negotiated when you placed the link onto your site).

3. Process link request emails. Whenever you receive requests for a link exchange, respond quickly. Not every mail you receive will be a good one, and you should make sure to check any site that wants you to link to it. If you are declining a link request let the web master know why. Perhaps you have an incite that they do not have. They may be able to fix a few things and then become excellent link partners in the future. It is common curtesy to inform the web master as to whether or not you are willing to exchange links within two or three days of receiving a request. Web masters will be even more impressed if you send them a personalized message regarding your approval or disapproval of the link exchange.

4. Check link exchange forums. This is a similar aspect to the above except that in this case it is more difficult to keep track of all of the people who can potentially request links from your site. There is a lot of spam on these sorts of things as well as many really terrible and useless sites. If you encounter such a site or forum member, inform them of your problem with what they are doing and report them to a moderator/administrator if they do not correct their behavior in a suitable manor. It is important that these kinds of forums be kept clean or a search engine may consider it a link farm more than an exchange service.

5. Finally, you should check each feature of your website, to make sure it’s still working properly. The dynamic content that you will probably include at some point must be delivered properly. Any messages that are generated on the fly must not be generated at misopportune times. The difference between a quality dynamic site and a subpar dynamic site is that in a quality dynamic site all content is delivered at the right time and everything seems static and planned out.

Take your time with your website and make sure that you do everything you can for it each day. Keep adding anything new that you find, because updating regularly will keep search engines coming back to spider more often. Updates are crucial and if you can follow the patterns here of insuring quality and precision, you will probably be able to come up with other ways that you can insure your visitors satisfaction and your increased traffic, link count, and search engine listings.

Never agree to link to someone’s site without asking for a link in exchange, unless they offer to pay you – even then, you should think twice. All your incoming and outgoing links need to be related to your site’s content for you to be ranked high in the search engines.

Basic Link Checks.

Some sites use robots.txt to stop search engines from indexing their links pages, in the mistaken belief that outbound links will count against them. To check, just retype their URL with robots.txt on the end (for example, http://www.website.com/robots.txt). If you see a page that says ‘Disallow’ and has the URL of their links page, then they’re not letting spiders index that page. Don’t exchange links with that site.

You should also check to see if the website is being ‘cloaked’, and report it to the search engines if it is. You don’t want to get involved with these people – better to have them banned and out of the way.

Does the site offering you a link have PageRank? Even if they do, you should look at how it drops between the front page and the links page. Be aware that new pages take a while to get ranked, so PR0 doesn’t necessarily mean a site that will never have any PageRank.

Take a look at how many links are on the page already. There shouldn’t be more than 20 links – if the site breaks this rule, don’t even consider it. Plenty of webmasters collect links, thinking they’re helping their rankings, but it just has the effect of making them look like link farms. Many of them don’t even involve linking to the big spam industries, like casinos and adult content. There’s no point in having a link from a site that takes links from just anyone.

The purpose of this document is to give an insight into the possibilities of using a DVDSN. The main aspects of a DVDSN are:

• Content distribution based on location or category
• Use of completely independent IP networks
• Network of independent DNS servers
• Availability
• Centralized management of content and statistics
• Geo Targeting
• Cost reduction compared to traditional dedicated hosting
• Backups through a RAIS (Random Array of Inexpensive Servers)
• Automatic pinging of new articles on the network
• Automatic intra-site linking
• Social Bookmarking
The use of DVDSN is completely transparent to the users as the optimal content distribution is handled by the software and as new servers are added to the network they automatically become available from the management console.
Content can be distributed according to criteria that the webmaster sets, the options are:
1. Category
2. Geographic location
3. Domain name
Availability is achieved by using multiple DNS servers and each server will have different IP addresses for the same host, so say NS1.xyz.com is responsible dns queries for host www.xyz.com ns1.xyz.com would have an ip address of 123.123.123.123 for www.xyz.com and ns2.xyz.com would have an ip address of 222.222.222.222 for www.xyz.com the reasoning behind this is that should that particular network server be down then automatically a secondary dns server would respond with an alternate host ip address.
The communication between the servers on DVDSN is all done through the SSH protocol and therefore all data is encrypted at all times. Replication on the network is scheduled to be performed at regular intervals.
The cost of being part of the network is relatively less expensive that traditional dedicated server packages but offers significant advantages from an availability and SEO point of view.

As data is replicated on the RAIS network, availability and backups are more secure as this is done on geographically different networks.
As data is published the CMS system also automatically notifies the major blog search engines (pinging). Further automations like directory submissions can also be done if needed.
There is also the possibility of having sites on the network automatically link to each other based on criteria set by the webmaster.
The distributed servers may also be used as a gateway for social bookmarking; the biggest obstacle with automating this process is the use of captcha fields. This can easily be solved in the following manner, let’s suppose we have a site where a large mass of users register; what we do is have them fill out a registration form and we use the captcha field from a remote social bookmarking site as follows:
Once a new user registers on one of our network sites a script on a random DVDSN server initiates a session on one of the social bookmarking sites and stores the captcha image and re-displays it to our user that is registering once the user inputs the captcha value we send this value back to the script and if the value is correct we have successfully added a new bookmark, if not the user is prompted again with a new captcha image. Obviously this process will use different user IDs that are constantly created from the different IP addresses on the various social network sites. This process can be maximized if we would use the captcha field also in the login or action (forum posts, blog comments etc) process.

CSS won’t give you many troubles. If you have to use CSS, it is best to link to it from another source. Create a separate CSS page and use the <link> tag to work it into the head of your HTML. This method will keep your page size down substantially, and since you will probably be utilizing the same CSS on different pages, reduce your bandwidth use. Normally a important quantity of CSS within the document isn’t indicative of any questionable behavior on the part of the linker. If you sense that you are, indeed, suffering from the fact that the site uses such a large amount of CSS on the page itself, suggest to the webmaster that he/she may want to create an external CSS document and link to it in his/her header.

Check that you’re still on the domain you clicked on a link to, and you haven’t moved to another site or a subdomain. Some people will move you to another domain while telling that’s their site and your link is there, relying on you not checking the address bar. This trick is all too common and happens to folks who are new to SEO every single day. This sad fact will continue until people begin to catch it every time.

If the domain has changed, delete your backlink to the site in question immediately and then email the webmaster with your complaint. If the webmaster does not fix the problem you may even want to request that they remove the link as the site may wind up discredited as a link farm or some such thing that you do not want to be associated with for fear of being banned from many popular search engines with technology used to combat link farms.

On a related subject, when you check your back links, make sure that these links appear in legitimate places. If the site is completely dedicated to linking to other sites and doesn’t seem to be a directory or something similar you will want to get your link removed as soon as possible. There is no time when one link is worth the risk of being permanently banned from any popular search engine. Aside from the traffic that you will lose from that one search engine, you may wind up “red flagged” so to speak. It seems to be common practice among search engines that if one finds faulty activity the rest seem to find out soon afterwards.

Generally, if it seems dodgy, don’t touch it. It’s better to sacrifice one link in caution than to destroy your site’s rankings by accepting one you’re not sure of. There are hundreds of situations aside from link farms that can and will give you trouble. It would be impossible to list every scam as there are people who make their living (or seem to anyway) in creating and executing these scams. Whenever there is a new form of “SEO” technology that “can’t fail,” you should watch out because it is almost guaranteed to blow up in your face. The only truly powerful and guaranteed method of SEO is to make your site valuable to your visitors and then let it fall where it may in the realm of the search engine.

It is difficult, after you have optimized your pages and submitted them to search engines and directories, to sit back and wait, but there is not much that can be done aside from attempting to accumulate links from good, solid places. The work that you have done is bound to pay off sooner or later as long as you stay honest. When it comes to the world of SEO, honesty is, indeed, the best policy.

I usually get all my sites indexed within 1 or 2 weeks, what I do is I usually find a domain I like and I will put up one or two pages of content the first day and then I proceed to create a an XML sitemap and I submit the sitemap to the search engines (Google Webmaster Tools). If your CMS does not provide that functionality you can use this sitemap generator.

I will then pick one of my articles and I will submit it to Digg, StumbleUpon  and other social media sites. It is ideal to add at least one new article a day for each site that you own. I personally have many sites, and I will only link in between my sites if they are relevant to each other, it is my opinion that you want to try to keep your links coming only from sites that discuss the same topic as you do, the reason for this is that  you will get more targeted traffic and the search engines recognize sites with similar content, I would much rather have only 5 inbound links from sites with similar content than 1000’s of links on sites that are completely irrelevant, some of you might now be laughing but I have done this time and time again and I constantly rank very well for fairly competitive keywords on both yahoo! and Google.

Where it counts to have a lot of links is if all things equal your competitors are also using the same techniques and are getting a lot of inbound links from relevant sites. Another point is that in my opinion a natural link which is embedded as part of the content has much greater value than say a footer link.

What you definitely do not want to do is comment spamming and forum spamming, play by the rules and you will see that if you are consistent you will see results.

Other relevant sites you might want to consider are specialized directories, and the only one I would pay for is the Yahoo! Directory. When you are submitting to directories or linking from articles make sure you use different variations for your anchor text, AND DO NOT use automated submission tools semi automated is ok, instead add your links and directory submissions gradually and keep it steady.

There is software out there that guarantees you millions of links but beware these tools are usually letting you post ads on FFA (Free for ALL) sites, and submission there can cause more harm than anything else.

There are only 3 reasons you should be using links:

1. Getting targeted (relevant)traffic
2. Improving your rankings in the Search Engines for relevant keywords
3. Letting your users know about other resources that are relevant to your topic

There are 2 reasons why or where you should NOT get links:

1. To improve your toolbar PR
2. To get a massive amount of irrelevant links from bad neighborhoods

For excellent information on link building and general SEO theory check out Michael Martinez’ blog which I believe is one of the best ones out there.