So which method would work the best for SEO of the following: - Articles submission - Directories submission - Search engines submission - Press release services - Other?
I believe the most important thing would be to build a useful and good site that people will like and share the link to others, what about facebook, twitter? does directory submission matter anymore ?
The best is to diversify to where your links are coming from so I would say do use them all. Articles submission and PR submission works better than the other two.
You shouldn't forget about the onpage optimization. For the links it is important to have a mix and not all the links from the same kind of sites.
Doesn't work for anything competitive at all. If you mean submitting to hundreds of spam directories, forget it. If you mean paying to get into higher quality ones such as botw.org, business.com, yahoo directory etc, then this is a solid foundation to start your seo. If you have something genuinely news worthy this can work. If you are just a low quality release purely for the link in the press release itself, forget it. The links here are useless. The only benefit is if you have something high quality - this way the press release is hopefully seen by people who can give you links that are powerful.
All the given methods are good for promotion activities. You must work with all of them. because Google like links from different sources. If you get links through different sources, you will be more benefited in terms of PR and SERP.
There's no single BEST method for SEO. All legitimate methods can be considered good methods and once you get to implement them then they all become the best SEO method that you've done.
I think all tactics are good for doing SEO but I would say article submission is really the best if it your article has rich and great content to drive more traffic as well backlinks to the site.
It's best to do all those link building options and see for your self which is the best and most effective.
So which website(s) dominate in each of their cathegories? I dont mind paying for stuff, I would just like to pay for the right stuff.
I think you should do all practices, because the combination of all the above practices will help you in getting good results.