Seo - Link Building - Your thoughts?

[AndyUK]

I'd be interested to know peoples thoughts on SEO and link building.

I've always had a very strong opinion about it but i seemed to be a lone voice, so spent 6 months doing a study. I'm pleased to say that the study revealed my initial thoughts were absolutly spot on.

Before i taint you with my thoughts, i;d like to hear your opinions first....

[icegems]

I'd be interested to know peoples thoughts on SEO and link building.

I've always had a very strong opinion about it but i seemed to be a lone voice, so spent 6 months doing a study. I'm pleased to say that the study revealed my initial thoughts were absolutly spot on.

Before i taint you with my thoughts, i;d like to hear your opinions first....

Depends on the type of links tbh.

Link exchanges don't seem to be much good.

Links from blogs and twitter etc better.

Links from directories - depends on the directory, their relevance and their PR I suppose.

Google PR load of twaddle - don't believe a word of it, we had a PR of 5 now it is down to 2 and yet traffic, conversion and sales have grown six fold since the PR of 5.

Definately interested in your findings.

[petad]

Google PR load of twaddle - don't believe a word of it, we had a PR of 5 now it is down to 2 and yet traffic, conversion and sales have grown six fold since the PR of 5.
Are PR updates even being run anymore? I've seen no change for a few months, and a site I keep an eye on which tracks PR updates has reported none since October last year.

Linking obviously has some kind of impact, as Google use it in their algorithm, but it's significance is diminishing, if I can believe what I read. If I just had a magic formula for geeting one-way links from high ranking sites...:(

[Adva Trading]

I'd be interested to know peoples thoughts on SEO and link building.

A long post - but than - the space is free :D

A. SEO in the site was the first.
The process I took was as follows:
1. Staffed the site with as many words that I could find with Google words tools.
2. Signed on to Ad Words and after few months took a look at the words that brought clicks (and sales) to the site and started to apply them to the site (Also added many words that their system recommended - so the amount of key words grew a lot).

B. After few must-have (Yahoo Directory and the likes) started a paid link building program (by an Indian company).
C. Started a second paid link program (Again by an Indian company).
D. Started 5 different Blogs (all free ones).
E. Started to look for two ways links (including approaching some here in Bluepark.
(There are few more stages in the marketing plan for the future)
I have done the above in defined stages, and my observations so far:
* Keywords: Nothing without top positions in searches.
* One way links effect:
- Move to first page for many phrases and key words within 3 months (From page # milion).
- PR moved from 2 to 0 and to 1 and to 2 in that time (But I agree with a posting here that there is something fundamentally wrong with PR, as I witnessed many websites in my area and other that got to the top of searches with zero PR).
- Actual organic traffic and sales grew.
*Two ways links: I don't know - but it does not make sense that you will be penalized for having them - I would think that they simply worth less. As they are free, they still worth gold.
* Blogs: A Blog I started two minutes ago is a link that was recognized by Google within a record time (While it does not recognise a 10 months old Yahoo Directory listing as yet). Too early to say that that is the best possible kind of links - but we do know that the new Google version came about just because of the need to identify fast moving content form Blogs and Social networks sites. Well, if they went for this hustle - surely they will use links they find in Blogs and Twitter and the likes.
In my marketing plans for the next 6 months: Heavy focus on Blogs, Face Book and the likes (and few more little surprises).
By the way:
A. All this time I was (and still) using Ad Words. Did that helped? Don't think so - but I did hear that urban myth once.
B. I have noticed that when I placed just few links to high-ranked websites (like the BBC and so on), traffic and possition is getting better within a day or so.
So, AndyUK, what are your thoughts?