many people asking my why one of my site is ranked higher in google using competitive keywords in it's niche. many are asking me how many directories I submitted my site with, how many articles I created, how many people I paid, etc, etc, etc... blah bla... I told them I spent nothing in advertising except pure hard work, dedication, a UNIQUE CONTENT. Why unique content? Simple, one of my lists has been reproduced and posted by around 30 bloggers in their sites pointing to my original page with my permission. And this is better than submitting your site into directories with 3 to 4 links deep...
You raise a very good point. Great content is the core of any solid SEO campaign. After all, who wants to link to crap? And great compelling content is much more likely to generate links to it. Also, unique content that you've spent a lot of time developing, as you mention, has a much higher chance of being considered relevant by search engines than cheap, easy-to-produce, generic content. Getting links in some directories does help (every bit does), but in my opinion, it's useless to go overboard with this (and many do go overboard) as good link building involves getting links from many types of sites. Overall, I definitely agree.
It's a blog... and you can see the traffic stat and google referrals in it sidebar... myseoblog.net LOL this makes me laugh..
My credit/mortgage forum was on your list, thanks.. every spammer and his dog have been hitting my site.
I agree and then I don't agree. For strong link building you need a quality PRODUCT plain and simple. That product could be content, but it could also be web-based tools or even downloadable apps or media. Take this forum for example. DP doesn't write any content but the PRODUCT of providing a digital gathering place(web-based tool) for others who do provide content makes it a worthwhile place to link to. So in short, if you don't like to write or want to write unique content you don't have to. Just have at least one of the PRODUCT types I mentioned above that is worthhwile and people will link to it.
DP's quality content is the posts and the whole membership.. Content depends on the nature of the site and since DP is a forum, threads and posts are its content...