SEO, Linktrading
UPDATE - I signed up for an account here but was very disappointed with the service. It’s nothing more than linkfarming which does very little for your site in terms of both ranking and relative content. My advice on this topic is to simply stay away.
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For the past few days i’ve found myself entirely caught up in SEO, Link Trading, and hooking in RSS Feeds into my sites. Basically I’m caught up in generating traffic. I have a good handle on optimizing sites to be search engine ready through use of Clean Document Structure, CSS, Meta-tags, Alt-tags, Title Tags, keyword rich content and so on. I also understand that a constantly growing document library is what makes sites big search engine players - the sites need to be constantly changing and constantly added too. What I didn’t realize to this point is that there are places (sites) where companies, people, organizations actually trade links at a very high volume. For instance, I’ve stumbled this site called Link Market. I signed up and all I can say is “Why the hell haven’t I known about this”. Well, I shouldn’t say that I didn’t know about link trading, but what I didn’t know was there was such a great place to do it and i’m sure there are more. We’ve got some big players in here, I think that’s the biggest surprise. There are sites in there with Alexa Rating of 200, 1300, 33,000 < - that's just a few that I saw, but point being they're high and they'll raise my rankings. So why am I so excited about this? Because this is the part i've failed to realize about SEO. See, I think I understand SEO just fine, I prepare the site and it's optimized and ready, but that's not enough. Engines Raise your rank based on your popularity - reciprical links. Of course content is very important too, but if you've got lots of good high ranking sites connected to yours, it will raise you. I think i'm definately seeing the light here and I'm thinking this is another one of those services to throw into the mix... Websites that actually bring in visitors. Christian was talking the other day about how he's studying and getting a grasp on building dynamic websites and how he's had more firepower with that, another tool, something that set's him apart from the rest - And I agree 100%, Dynamic is in Demand and that's where the money's at -> not to mention is just more interesting in general. But this is no different, we figure this out (this SEO business) and we’ve got ourselves jackpot… Dynamic Sites that actually pull in clients. Shopping carts that’s actually bring in Clients. Sky’s the limit and i’m feeling stupid about not knowing this already.
Filed under: Web
Wasssup! Weird, it automatically knew who I was, so I’m guessing the hiccups are over? Geez, now I’m thinking of taking my “secrets” down from my blog (LOL!) Heck, if you guys like the idea, then I don’t want encourage others to jump on the band-wagon. HOWever, there are approximately 99% of web sites out there that are not cross-platform/browser, standards compliant. So - there should be enough for all to have their piece of the pie.
I think I’ll research if anyone has come up with a new percentage, that 99% was in Zeldman’s book and that was done a bit ago. Anyway - Good Luck boys and I’ll be here if I can be of any assistance in da future! Now if I can only find some time to bury my head in that MYSQL/PHP 2 inch thick book. So much to absorb, so little time!
Oh yeah - yousa gotta tell me all about this RSS shite, or better yet, I’ll look it up. Another tool for the toolbox I’m sure.
“the secrets” about Dynamic? That’s what I pointed out to you
Your my example to make the point clear 
Funny how with time and more business experience you begin to realize what’s marketable and actually useful for clients. It’s a tough sell, a static “brochure site” that doesn’t pull in visitors by the dozens, that doesn’t offer any tools on the backend. Lately it really feels like a light switch just sort of flicked on for us here, how Al, my partner, and I actually mesh, where our strengths lye, what we make the most money doing, and what we enjoy doing - and this is it. It’s web, it’s dynamic, it’s traffic, it’s compliant, it’s efficient, automated - basically i think we’re somewhat morphing into more of an application developer. We’re pitching a client right now for a CRM built on MySQL & Java, huge project. Another project is a full blown, completly customized from the ground up shopping cart system - we’re slowly turning into an application shop as opposed to a web shop and clean code and dynamic languages is just the beginning. Scary to think about, but I’m losing interest in print, it’s wishy washy and not very goal or phase oriented. I’m clearly not a programmer, i don’t wanna go so far as to say that, maybe more of a GUI designer, Information Architecture, CSS - Along those lines. I think my identity, and our identity is crystalizing by the day. We know this stuff and actually enjoy putting in the hours. That’s gotta count for something